Despite a proliferation of climate strategies at all levels of governance, the most vulnerable populations remain on the margins of adaptation measures within the European Union. This is the conclusion reached by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in a report published on Tuesday 10 June: ‘Social fairness in preparing for climate change: how just resilience can benefit communities across Europe’.
The document analyses four areas – housing, agriculture and food, water and transport – to demonstrate the major inequalities of climate impacts, which also suffer from a limited application of the justice principle in adaptation policies.
According to the study, although vulnerable populations are often identified in risk assessments, they are still excluded from decision-making.
Only 4% of local adaptation plans actively involve them in the planning process, and barely 3% have explicit social justice objectives.
The European Environment Agency also reports that 19% of Europeans cannot keep their homes cool during the summer, that migrant farm workers are particularly vulnerable to climate extremes, and that 34% of the EU population is affected by water stress every year.
Access to transport and safe, accessible green spaces also remains uneven, particularly in low-income areas.
The EEA points out that the fundamental rights recognised by the EU Charter, in particular the right to social protection (Article 34) and the right to health care (Article 35), are directly affected by adaptation to climate change. And the absence of measures for vulnerable populations could, according to the agency, compromise effective access to these rights in the most exposed territories.
More intensive action is needed, says the EEA, which recommends that Europe define a common framework for “just resilience”, allocate specific funding and fully integrate this dimension into the future 2026 climate adaptation plan.
At national and local level, it recommends the systematic involvement of marginalised groups, the monitoring of social impacts and the fine-tuning of measures to the real needs of the areas concerned.
If these changes are not made, climate adaptation risks reproducing and even exacerbating existing inequalities.
Read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/hbt (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)