The City of Rio de Janeiro has demonstrated strategic importance within the project Urban-LEDS, where it is featured as a satellite city alongside five other municipalities. Through the project, ICLEI South America and the Municipality of Rio will implement low-carbon actions in municipal schools with the potential for replication in other schools and cities.

Yesterday morning (18th), the ICLEI South America Climate Change Manager, Igor Albuquerque, along with Rio City Hall's Climate Change Manager, Nelson Moreira Franco, and PMP representative, Irma Lins, met to decide which priority low-carbon interventions would be adopted in schools.

With the aim of getting to know the location where the initial actions will be applied, the ICLEI network, along with representatives from SMAC (Secretariat of the Environment), visited two schools in the city, one in the Rocinha community, Francisco de Paula Brito School, and another in the Jacarepaguá neighbourhood, Claudio Besserman Vianna School.

The pre-identified interventions were:

• Installation of photovoltaic panels
• Installation of power filters
• Self-irrigating green roof installation

The three pre-identified interventions aim to achieve improvements and be replicated by a large number of schools in the city. The installation of photovoltaic panels aims to reduce energy consumption and presents great potential in the area of environmental education. The initiative related to the installation of energy filters is based on improving the quality of the electrical energy of the installed network, reducing the effects caused by frequency distortion, voltage and current surges, and noise. Finally, the third action seeks to reduce thermal load and improve energy efficiency.

The main objective of the interventions is to promote low-carbon urban development in the City of Rio de Janeiro and for other cities to be inspired by the measures that will be adopted. Initiatives like these, applied in spaces dedicated to early childhood education, have high potential for environmental awareness and education, as well as bringing citizens closer to climate challenges.