The European Climate Pact: A perfect match for EU climate goals

Each year, Valentine’s Day reminds us of the importance of nurturing connections, establishing partnerships and making shared commitments to the things we love – climate action that is. Here’s how the European Climate Pact can help you find the perfect partner in 2026, while also matching your personal climate action with broader European Union goals.

The EU is on its way to becoming the first climate-neutral continent. In addition to fighting climate change, this also includes modernising our economy, securing our energy independence, and protecting people's health and wellbeing. 

This journey will bring structural change, but it will also make our Union more resilient to setbacks and competitive on the global stage.

But here’s the thing: a successful transition won’t happen thanks to policy alone. It also needs community action, led by people like you.

This is where the European Climate Pact comes in:

• The Pact helps turn EU policy into concrete action on the ground, bridging the gap between local community initiatives and bigger structural change.
• It is your gateway to be part of something bigger. Through events and activities, the Pact encourages us all to take our own steps to build a more sustainable future – and connect with others on the same journey.

Bringing people and ideas together

As well as aligning local and EU action, the Pact plays matchmaker by connecting people with a shared passion to tackle the climate crisis.

Pact Ambassadors and Partners are encouraged to link with other community members and develop ideas to make a bigger impact.

One example is the Climate Skills Hub initiative, which is led by Italian Pact Ambassador Davide Ricciardi. 

“Born from the Pact’s matchmaking process, the Climate Skills Hub has paired Ambassadors with practitioners from across Europe, such as cities’ climate and sustainability officers, businesses’ environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) leads, and sustainability consultants. It has united them around a shared challenge: translating climate ambition into everyday behavioural change,” Davide explains.

“In practice, we are developing and piloting short, applied learning formats through micro-learning modules and practical templates to help local actors and professionals turn key concepts into measurable action. The first pilots are being tested now, online and in English initially, with additional EU languages planned as the Hub scales.”

The Hub aims to increase knowledge of climate action and ESG affairs among cities and regions, businesses, non-governmental organisations and other professionals. And why is this a perfect pairing? 

“It closes the execution gap between EU-level policy and local-level action by translating priorities such as the Clean Industrial Deal and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive into practical, relevant skills,” says Davide. 

“We focus on applied climate skills: from adaptation planning, transition planning and climate risks to data literacy and know-how to help organisations move from strategy to delivery.”

As for teaming up with others via the Pact’s matchmaking process, Davide says this brought together people whose profiles perfectly complemented one another. 

“It gave us clearer roles, sped up our work, and gave the initiative legitimacy across different countries,” he says.

Connecting Europe’s climate action community

Other initiatives born from the Pact’s matchmaking activities and currently being developed by community members include:

• Climate for All, which is developing games that can be used to raise awareness of climate topics
• The Pact Community Practice Hub, which is building a community to gather ideas for ways to successfully engage citizens in climate action
• A database gathering information on heat-resilience solutions that are being driven by citizens across Europe

By connecting Europe’s climate action community, local initiatives grow around shared ideas, knowledge is turned into concrete outputs, and we see an impact on a bigger scale than could have previously been imagined.

The Pact’s support also ensures community-level action supports EU-level policy: for example, the Climate Skills Hub should help promote expertise for Europe’s clean industrial transition, as Davide explains:

“We align learning with the EU skills framework, meaning that policy objectives translate into progress on the ground.”

These actions aren’t just fighting climate change. They are also playing a part in preparing people for new jobs, making local communities stronger, and building a more competitive, resilient Europe for the future.

To learn more about this, check out our previous articles on how the EU will help clean industries grow and compete, and how cities can adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Learn more

Want to know more about the future of EU climate policy? 

Join our Together in Action 2026 event to hear an update from EU speakers including Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth, and join thematic sessions led by members of the Pact community. 

Make sure you also register for our webinar on the ABC of EU Climate Policy on 17 February and the following deep dive on 12 March.