The European Council in March 2007 announced its so-called "3 x 20" climate targets for 2020. These aimed to:
-    reach a 20% share of renewable energy in energy consumption,
-    improve energy efficiency by 20%,
-    reduce GHG emissions by 20% compared to 1990.

The Energy/Climate legislative package of March 2009 establishes specific policies to reach these goals and distributes them to the members' states (which may adopt more restrictive emission regulations if they wish).

To reach these targets, regions and local authorities play an important role, especially as EU is encouraging regions to develop and implement climate change mitigation strategies, such as Covenant of Mayors initiative. National data for GHG emissions are not sufficient and accurate enough to help define and monitor local strategies and in another hand, local monitoring systems already exist for environmental issues such as Energy and GHG emissions, Air quality, Climate changes…

Climactregions promotes the implementation of regional energy and GHG observatories in European regions. A regional observatory plays two mains roles:
1) Provide data to support climate changes mitigation policies at local level

• Baseline inventory (energy production, energy consumption, GHG emissions) 
• Definition of Sustainable Energy Action Plan

2) Energy planning:

• Monitoring:
  • Final energy consumption
  • GHG emissions
  • Energy production: mainly but not limited to renewable
• Coherence with regional/national objectives and plans
• Involve key local stakeholders in a multi level governance process

Climactregions identified more than 20 observatories  in the EU, in Liguria(Italy), in Basque Country (Spain)in Rhône-Alpes (France)…
Several observatories are built on air quality observatories and most structures are governed by local consortium and financially supported by public authorities. Methodologies for accounting GHG emissions are based on International standards (IPCC and Corinair) as well as national methodologies. But these observatories feel the need for further standardization to compare territories and establish European methodologies.

Climactregions partners will implement a European network of GHG observatories, called ENERGee-Watch.

For regional and local public authorities, participating to such a network will be the occasion to Identify best practices in other European regions (Energy planning, Monitoring systems, Climate Change mitigation strategies…). It will be also the occasion to be part of a network dedicated to Climate Changes, to share experience about Covenant of Mayors initiative, to expand the scope of observatories to include other indicators such as economical ones and the possibility to identify new green economy opportunities
For existing and new observatories, the experience sharing (methodologies, tools, partnership, operations,..) will be very fruitful with the access to European organizations (JRC, COR,EEA..).

Energee Watch will have three main missions:

1) Experience sharing between Regional/local public authorities in the field of energy and GHG inventory.

2) Experience sharing among GHG monitoring organisations:

• How to set up a local observatory and involve local stakeholders
• Compare existing monitoring methodologies and processes
• Compare existing partnership agreements for data collection and diffusion
• Compare and evaluate existing tools (GIS,..)
• Comply with European directives (Inspire: exchange of environmental data)

3) Involve European organisations to:

• Define methodologies suited to local needs (bottom up approaches,..)
• Define common guidelines in order to be able to compare territories performances
• Improve national and international observation methodologies based on feedback from regional approaches (bottom-up)
• Evaluate the European energy policies (COM)

The members of Energee Watch will be Regional and local public authorities , Regional energy and GHG observatories, Other observatories such as Air quality and climate change, National and International E-GHG emissions observatories and International climate changes organizations (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, European Environment Agency).

ENERGee-Watch will be coordinated by FEDARENE (European Federation of Agencies and Regions for Energy and Environment) during the initial phase by starting discussions on key subjects such as methodologies, indicators, partnership; defining the most adequate organization to run the European network of observatories (association, statutes, membership,..) and Promote the activities to new potential members. The Technical animation will be ensured by Rhonalpénergie Environnement until the end of 2012.
The first network meeting will be held in Brussels during EUSEW in June 2012( date to be confirmed)followed by one technical meeting through web seminar in October 2012.

The founding members will be members of Climactregions. If you would like to become a member, submit your request to FEDARENE and sign the ENERGee-Watch charter.