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In this article, we will discuss about the potential of renewable energies available in a relatively small territorial context, such as municipalities, and the various problems interfering with a full exploitation of said potential. Since the launch of Covenant of Mayors, CoM, in 2008, thousands of local governments committed on volunteer basis in reaching or even exceeding, to the EU targets with regards to climate change and renewable energies for the years to come. Every local government committed to the CoM needs to produce the SEAP (Sustainable Energy Action Plan), which highlights the actions that the government is willing to implement in order to achieve the target set by the CoM (referred either to the 2020 or to the 2030). While studying the local context, many problems of various nature often arise which can be detrimental for the full exploitation of the potential of renewable resources available. This article displays a few examples of local governments located around the world and the problems encountered while writing their SEAP, related to geographical position, types of agricultural, industrial and commercial activities in the area, plants already operative, financial situation of the local government and the population living in the area. The possible areas of intervention include energy efficiency works on public and private buildings, traffic reduction strategies, energy recovery systems applied to factories and industrial plants, solar thermal, photovoltaic and wind power installations, material and energy recovery processes applied to waste management and hydroelectric power installations.

The Paris agreement fixed worldwide targets on the temperature increase below 2°C in the XXI century. Presently 176 countries ratified this framework. With the 20-20-20 package, the European Commission fixes three targets: (i) reduction of the European greenhouse gas emissions at least 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, (ii) 20% of EU energy consumption must come from renewable resources by 2020 and (iii) 20% reduction in primary energy use compared with projected levels, by improving energy efficiency. To achieve these global targets, Covenant of Mayor was launched in 2008 as a voluntary initiative for local administrations that decide to adopt a plan of interventions concerning greenhouse gas mitigations achieving and exceeding the EU climate and energy targets. In the present paper, we analyse the global results of the initiative during its first decade of activity, focusing on the Italian case at national level, since it is presently the leading country in terms of population involved.