doi:10.3989/arbor.2022.803-804003spaLópez-Mesa, B.From Fossil Fuel Society to Low-Carbon Society: Smart Cities as a Facilitating StrategyART-2022-128832Current environmental problems have their origin in changes in energy sources and the urban metabolism (linear-circular) throughout history. In response to these problems, Europe has defined an energy transition strategy, reinforced with circular economy and carbon capture strategies, with the aim of becoming the first climate-neutral continent. Cities play a very relevant role in energy transition because they host a large part of human activities and are responsible for a good part of consumption. In this paper, we propose a classification of the different societies throughout history from the environmental and energy point of view, which distinguishes four societies: organic, mineral, fossil fuel, and low-carbon. We analyse these considering urban and technological aspects as well as energy sources and consumption-related matters. Throughout history, energy transitions have taken a long time. The smart city is seen here as one of the innovations that will allow a quick and progressive implementation of the energy transition in Europe. The global scale of decarbonisation is seen, however, as one of the greatest challenges to overcome. © 2022 CSIC.2022http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/11888810.3989/arbor.2022.803-804003http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/118888oai:zaguan.unizar.es:118888info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2019-104871RB-C21Arbor 198, 803-804 (2022), a636 - [15 pp]byhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess