Subject: Everywhere in Europe, energy consumption increases, yet our supply of fossil fuels will not last forever and we need to find sustainable solutions. Several European cities have focused on renewable energies and have developed global concepts of sustainability. One of these, Barcelona has a unique regulation in the area of solar energy: the "Solar Ordinance". This decrees that all new buildings should use thermal solar energy for their hot water use. But that's not all. Everywhere around the city, the municipality promotes photovoltaic energy, a technology which allows the generation of electricity through the conversion of sunshine. Thanks to a collective political ambition, this Catalan capital is achieving a far more rational use of energy. This kind of initiatives is supported by different programmes of the European Commission, including the Campaign “Sustainable Energy Europe 2005-2008”. This Campaign will give a strong signal to political opinion makers, to private and public investors as well as to European citizens: to invest in renewable energies.

• Download of the video  (MPEG1 format)
  
   
• On-line viewing of the video (RealVideo format):
  EN – FR