The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) stressed, in a statement released on Friday 30 July, the urgency of adapting to the inevitable consequences of climate change following the recent floods in some EU Member States.
This statement is based on an EESC opinion, adopted at its July plenary session, underlining the need for equity-based adaptation to protect the lives and livelihoods of all European citizens, especially the most vulnerable. One of its recommendations is to address existing inequalities through long-term climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, so that no one is left behind.
Welcoming the new EU strategy on adaptation (see EUROPE 12665/4), the opinion also calls for the establishment of guidelines, concrete targets, monitoring tools, benchmarks and specific indicators to help anticipate and manage the effects of climate change and to assess progress on adaptation.
The Committee thus sees the strategy as a basis for a legally binding initiative that would oblige Member States to draw up national plans and strategies for adaptation to climate change.
The opinion also calls for equal emphasis on financing mitigation and adaptation and for strategies on mitigation and adaptation to be combined in all climate policies.
The EESC also calls for incentives to direct private financial flows to climate change mitigation and adaptation activities. It therefore calls on the European Commission to “keep the bar high (on green finance) and follow science-based and technology-neutrality principles, including in the EU taxonomy”.
Furthermore, the Committee regrets the lack of concrete examples of adaptation in the EU strategy.
See the opinion: https://bit.ly/3rJNWW5 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)