Following a summer marked by record temperatures, as confirmed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) (see EUROPE 13244/27), representatives of the Council and the European Commission were heard by MEPs on Tuesday 12 September in Strasbourg on the subject of strengthening protection measures against extreme heat waves, floods and forest fires. With good reason, the European Parliament has called for greater action to build a European Union that is more resilient to disasters.
The Council, represented by Spain’s State Secretary for the EU, Pascual Navarro Ríos, stressed the need for such a commitment to meet the growing climate challenges. While highlighting European solidarity over recent months through the civil protection mechanism, Mr Navarro Ríos stressed that more needed to be done to anticipate, saying: “In the face of these disasters, the European Union has shown its determination through the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. We need to do more and do it better, because climate change means we are facing increasingly intense and recurrent weather phenomena”. He also encouraged better crisis management and the use of early warning systems.
The Spanish diplomat called for planning to be stepped up to reduce risks, and for cooperation to find new ways of dealing with the repercussions of climate change. Pascual Navarro Ríos also stressed the importance of research and innovation through ‘Horizon Europe’ in building a disaster-resilient society.
The European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, for his part, took the floor to welcome the increase in investment in resilience, including the doubling of resilience funds, and announced the measures taken to strengthen the EU’s disaster response capacity, including the creation of a coordination centre for real-time emergency response. However, he warned that requests for assistance had “increased by 400% in two years”, putting a strain on available resources.
The European Commissioner, who spoke of the creation of a new instrument for recovery and resilience dedicated to adaptation to climate change, called for greater solidarity and a review of the European budget for civil protection.
He stressed the need to invest in prevention and preparedness, noting that “every euro invested in these areas could save €5 to €10 in response costs”. “The annual losses linked to climatic disasters already reach €14 billion in the European Union”, he recalled. In this respect, he stressed the importance of the ‘European Green Deal’, noting that its cost would be much lower than the cost of inaction: “The European Green Deal is a tool, a horizontal prevention strategy that is as comprehensive as possible. We need a capacity to respond, we need greater resilience and we need more measures to adapt to and minimise climate change to prevent the worst from happening”.
As a result, Janez Lenarčič supported the continued integration of the ‘European Green Deal’ “in all sectors” and called for the mobilisation of all available instruments and mechanisms to strengthen the EU’s resilience and, finally, to encourage the European Parliament to reassess the dedicated funding during the mid-term review of the Multiannual Financial Framework. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)