Carsten Rothballer is Coordinator in ICLEI's Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience team. Senior Expert at ICLEI Europe since 2009 working on climate policy, with profound experience in training, sustainable energy planning and implementation, integrated management and infrastructure, resilience, risk assessment and international networking on climate and energy issues. He supports local and regional governments in Germany and throughout Europe in the development, improvement as well as financing of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs), Smart City solutions and urban infrastructures such as district heating. To this end, he also acts as official expert in the Initiative for Coal Regions in Transition for the EU as well as the Western Balkan and Ukraine (WBUA), advises on capacity building of political and technical decision-makers and coordinates the exchange programme between EU and WBUA coal regions. Furthermore and in the context of the just energy transition, he develops market dialogues, public-private and/or civic partnerships and stakeholder engagement strategies and concepts together with public authorities and industry. General activities include monitoring current developments in international and European energy and climate policy, conducting advocacy on behalf of local governments and facilitating local-national dialogues.