With climate risks on the increase, and even though all 32 member countries of the European Environment Agency (EEA) now have a national adaptation policy, European countries are faced with a series of structural obstacles to implementation.
This is one of the findings of a briefing published on Thursday 6 November by the EEA, the aim of which is to outline the “progress and challenges around Europe’s climate adaptation policies and actions”.
The analysis is based mainly on 2025 data (https://aeur.eu/f/jg2 ) communicated by the 27 Member States of the European Union under the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action Regulation (https://aeur.eu/f/jgl ), supplemented by voluntary contributions from Iceland, Switzerland and Turkey.
Data availability and quality appear to be the main weaknesses. Of the EU Member States, 21 currently have a comprehensive national climate risk assessment covering several sectors and the whole country, while six have not yet produced one, despite the fact that it is essential for guiding public action.
Tools supporting decision-making are still too heterogeneous. The EEA notes that many national arrangements are still poorly adapted to the needs of local authorities. This shortfall is all the more significant given the growing importance of climate risks. Of the 32 countries covered by the EEA, around 30 identify agriculture and food as the main sectors affected, between 25 and 30 warn of major consequences for health and around 20 for energy.
Added to these difficulties is that of governance. Ten EEA countries legally impose adaptation obligations at regional or local level, while seven only have obligations at national level, which leads to institutional complexity.
Finally, the weakness of reporting and evaluation remains a critical point. Reporting by EU Member States under the Governance Regulation remains descriptive. In this sense, it focuses on the institutional frameworks, but provides little information on implementation and the results obtained.
Only a few countries, including Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Sweden, have evaluation frameworks that are progressing.
The EEA sees the forthcoming revision of the Governance Regulation as an opportunity “to address these limitations”.
The briefing: https://aeur.eu/f/jg1 (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)