According to a blueprint for the new EU strategy on adaptation to climate change, obtained by EUROPE on Tuesday 9 February, the European Commission aims to better monitor and evaluate the adaptation measures put in place in the Member States to combat the impacts of climate change.
“Efforts to measure (increased) resilience to climate change need to be continued and upgraded”, the blueprint indicates.
In order to assess this resilience and then monitor its trend over time, the new strategy “could use a dashboard” with regular progress reports against defined targets, the document states.
Improving data
The Commission also stresses the need to improve the available data on climate risks and losses so that Member States can make well-informed decisions on investments in climate change adaptation.
“Member States lack decision-useful data to prioritise climate-resilience investments, protect people, critical public assets and nature, and manage financial risks to their economies”, notes the institution.
It continues, “it will be important that across the EU and worldwide, investors, insurers, businesses, cities and citizens are able to access data and to develop instruments (e.g., climate services) to integrate climate change into their risk management practices”.
The paper therefore recommends strengthening access to data for businesses and the financial sector (to better adapt their business model to climate risk), citizens (to make decisions on property, insurance, health, etc.) and cities (to make investment decisions on resilience).
Need for investments
The blueprint furthermore stresses the need to finance adaptation measures, including cross-border measures, notably through continued support from EU funds, but also by encouraging private investment in adaptation, including nature-based solutions.
“Ensuring waters, forests and agriculture can withstand a changing climate is critical to reaching many objectives, including preserving ecosystem services, and not least the carbon sequestration potential of forests”, the document says.
Bridging the knowledge gap
According to the Commission, there are also “large knowledge gaps”, in particular regarding economic losses due to climate change, the effects of simultaneous or sequential climate impacts, spill-over effects from outside Europe to the EU, or tipping points beyond which human and natural ecosystems would be permanently affected by climate change.
And the institution recalls that economic losses in the EU due to weather and extreme weather events average €12 billion each year.
Supporting partner countries
Finally, while stressing the need to further integrate the issue of adaptation into EU legislation and European instruments, the blueprint emphasises the need to strengthen global action for climate change resilience, in particular by supporting the countries most affected by climate change.
“The core of our international action on adaptation must be the translation of the economic and societal development model that the European Green Deal sets for the EU [...] into our development policy”, the Commission believes.
According to the institution, the EU should strive to share knowledge and deploy supporting instruments, including modelling tools, geospatial data and information, such as those provided by Copernicus.
The new climate change adaptation strategy will be officially unveiled by the commission on 24 February.
See the blueprint: http://bit.ly/3cVJMFf (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)