Facts and figures
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, in south Central Europe. The country shares borders with Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia as well as access to the Adriatic Sea.
Ljubljana has a population of just under 300,000 out of the national population of 2.06 million. It is an ancient settlement site, with archaeological remains found dating back to 2000BC. Today the medieval layout and significant Baroque and Vienna Secession style architecture dominate the city’ s picturesque centre.
Ljubljana is located in a river basin, with hills surrounding the city. This can exacerbate air pollution in the area, alongside weather conditions with cold winters and hot summers leading to inversions as well as demand for winter heating.
Lovely Ljubljana
In each edition we introduce one of our six pilot areas. Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and a proud member of ClairCity.
City success
Ljubljana has achieved some air pollution improvements over the past few years. Nitrogen dioxide annual levels in the city centre have remained within the accepted range for the last three years thanks to traffic management improvements, including pedestrianising 10ha of the central area.
However, PM10 levels are still exceeding EU levels in winter months so more effort is required. District heating systems now provide almost 75 % of heating energy needs in the city centre and are being expanded to the city outskirts and neighbouring towns.
Find out more at www. ljubljana. si
Comparing our cities
As expected, circumstances and policies regarding air quality and carbon management are quite different across our pilot cities. Whereas Amsterdam and Bristol mainly struggle with NOx and PM emissions from traffic, in other cities emissions from household boilers play a more prominent role.
Site visit to Ljubljana, 2017
In particular Sosnowiec also has to deal with high concentration levels of Benzo-a-pyrene, contributing to alarming smog levels on cold winter days.
While public and policy attention to air quality and carbon management vary substantially between areas, all cities and regions have some policies implemented. These include measures to stimulate walking and cycling, improvements in public transport and discouraging private cars from entering the city. For energy, policies vary from subsidising more efficient domestic boilers to stimulating private renewable energy cooperatives, and from expanding district-heating systems to encouraging all-electric solutions in households.
The next step for our team will be to analyse the room for change that cities and regions in each national context.
Stephan Slingerland
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