Strasbourg, 12 March 2024
The European Commission has today published a Communication on managing climate risks in Europe. It sets out how the EU and its Member States can better anticipate, understand, and address growing climate risks. It further presents how they can prepare and implement policies that save lives, cut costs, and protect prosperity across the EU.
The Communication responds to the first ever European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA), a scientific report by the European Environment Agency. Together, they are a call to action for all levels of government, as well as the private sector and civil society. They set out clearly how all major sectors and policy areas are exposed to climate-related risks, how severe and urgent the risks are, and how important it is to have clarity on who has the responsibility to address the risks.
2023 was the hottest year on record. According to the February report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the global average temperature for the preceding 12 months had surpassed the threshold of 1.5 degrees set in the Paris Agreement. As the EU is taking comprehensive action to reduce its emissions and limit climate change, we must also take action to adapt to already unavoidable changes, and to protect people and prosperity. According to the Eurobarometer survey, 77% of Europeans see climate change as a very serious problem, and more than one in three Europeans (37%) already feel personally exposed to climate risks.
Today’s Communication shows how the EU can effectively get ahead of the risks and build greater climate resilience. The Commission is proposing a series of actions and will work with other EU Institutions, Member States, regional and local authorities, citizens and businesses to follow up on these suggestions.
Equipping European society for greater climate resilience
The Commission Communication underscores how action to improve climate resilience is essential for maintaining societal functions and protecting people, economic competitiveness and the health of the EU’s economies and companies. It is also imperative for a just and fair transition. Investing upfront in reducing our vulnerability to climate risk will incur much lower costs than the sizable sums required to recover from climate impacts like droughts, floods, forest fires, diseases, crop failures or heat waves. By conservative estimates, these damages could otherwise reduce EU GDP by about 7% by the end of the century. Investments in climate-resilient buildings, transport and energy networks could also create significant business opportunities and benefit more widely the European economy, generating highly skilled jobs, and affordable clean energy.
To help the EU and its Member States to manage climate risks, the Communication identifies four main categories of action:
- Improved governance: The Commission calls on Member States to ensure that the risks and responsibilities are better understood, informed by best evidence and dialogue. Identifying the ‘risk owners’ is a critical first step. The Commission calls for closer cooperation on climate resilience between national, regional and local levels to ensure that knowledge and resources are made available where they are most effective. Climate resilience is increasingly addressed across all sectoral policies, but shortcomings persist in planning and implementation at national level. The Communication notes that Member States have taken the first steps to include climate resilience in their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs).
- Better tools for empowering risk owners: Policymakers, businesses, and investors need to better understand the interlinkages between climate risks, investment, and long-term financing strategies. This can provide the right market signals to help bridge the current resilience and protection gaps. The Commission will improve existing tools to help regional and local authorities better prepare through robust and solid data. The Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA) will provide access to key granular and localised data, products, applications, indicators and services. To help with emergencies, in 2025 the Galileo Emergency Warning Satellite Service (EWSS) will become available to communicate alert information to people, businesses and public authorities even when terrestrial alert systems are down. Major data gaps will be reduced thanks to the proposed Forest Monitoring Law and Soil Monitoring Law, which will improve early warning tools for wildfires and other disasters and contribute to more accurate risk assessments. More broadly, the Commission will promote the use of available monitoring, forecasting and warning systems.
- Harnessing structural policies: structural policies in Member States can be efficiently used to manage climate risks. Three structural policy areas hold particular promise for managing climate risks across sectors: better spatial planning in the Member States; embedding climate risks in planning and maintaining critical infrastructure; linking EU-level solidarity mechanisms, like the UCPM, the EU Solidarity Fund, and Cohesion policy structural investments, with adequate national resilience measures. The civil protection systems and assets must be future-proofed, through investing in EU and Member State disaster risk management, response capacities and expertise that can be rapidly deployed across borders. This should fully integrate climate risks in the disaster risk management processes.
- Right preconditions for financing climate resilience: Mobilising sufficient finance for climate resilience, both public and private will be crucial. The Commission stands ready support Member States to improve and mainstream climate-risk budgeting in national budgetary processes. To ensure that EU spending is resilient to climate change, the Commission will integrate climate adaptation considerations in the implementation of EU programmes and activities as part of the ‘do no significant harm’ principle. The Commission will convene a temporary Reflection Group on mobilising Climate Resilience Financing. The Reflection Group will bring together key industrial players and representatives of public and private financial institutions to reflect on how to facilitate climate resilience finance. The Commission calls on Member States to take account of climate risks when including environmental sustainability criteria in competitive public procurement tenders, for instance through the Net-Zero Industry Act.
From a sectoral perspective, the Commission puts forward concrete suggestions for action in six main impact clusters: natural ecosystems, water, health, food, infrastructure and built environment, and the economy. The implementation of existing EU legislation is an important precursor to successfully managing risks in many of these areas, and key measures are outlined in the Communication.
While the Communication focusses on managing climate risks within the European Union, the EU is also active at the international level in addressing climate risks, and a large share of our international climate finance goes to adaptation measures. The Commission will continue to share experience, knowledge, and tools on climate risk management internationally and include climate risk management in bilateral and multilateral discussions.
Background
A historically high acceleration in climate disruption in 2023, saw global warming reaching 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels, and ocean temperatures and Antarctic Ocean ice loss breaking records by a wide margin. Surface air temperature has risen even more sharply in Europe, with the latest five-year average at 2.2°C above the pre-industrial era. Europe is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.
To avoid the worst outcomes of climate change and protect lives, health, the economy and ecosystems, emissions need to be reduced. While the EU is taking action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, climate impacts are already with us, and the risks will continue to increase, meaning that climate adaptation measures are also essential.
The European Climate Risk Assessment identifies 36 major climate risks for Europe within five broad clusters: ecosystems, food, health, infrastructure, and the economy. More than half of the identified risks demand more action now and eight of them are particularly urgent, mainly to conserve ecosystems, protect people against heat, protect people and infrastructure from floods and wildfires.
Since the adoption of the EU’s first Adaptation Strategy in 2013, and the updated Adaptation Strategy adopted in February 2021 under the von der Leyen Commission, the EU and its Member States have made considerable progress in understanding the climate risks they face and in preparing for them. National climate risk assessments are increasingly used to inform adaptation policy development. However, societal preparedness is still low because of a lag between policy development and implementation and the rapid increase in risk levels.
More information
- Communication on managing climate risks in Europe
- Executive Summary – European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA)
- Report on Preventing and managing disaster risk in Europe
- Questions and Answers
- Factsheet
- EU Adaptation Strategy
- European Climate Law
- EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change
- Climate-ADAPT
Quote(s)
Last year was by far the hottest on record and Europe therefore needs to build resilience against climate impacts, by identifying risks, improving preparedness, and fine-tuning policies across the board to protect lives and livelihoods. Today’s Communication is a loud call to action at all levels. It identifies solutions to be more effective – notably better coordination between the EU and our Member States, easier use of knowledge for long-term planning, early warning systems, fighting climate disinformation, improved spatial planning, including critical infrastructure, and right preconditions for financing climate resilience. Every euro spent on prevention and preparedness will result in benefits for all, while we need to be extra attentive to the most vulnerable areas, sectors and people.
Record-breaking heatwaves, severe floods, droughts, extreme wildfires are all becoming more frequent and more intense. Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world. We have a collective duty to protect our people and prosperity against climate risks, but it is not always clear who should take responsibility, and how. The first ever European Climate Risk Assessment helps us to answer that question, and to take the necessary actions. It makes far more economic sense to build climate resilience now than to pay for the costs of climate damage later. For our citizens and societies, we must get ahead of coming climate risks, while never losing sight of our work to tackle the root causes of climate change and limit our emissions.
Source – EU Commission
EU Commission Questions and answers: Communication on managing climate risks to protect people and prosperity
What are the climate risks that the EU is facing?
The science is clear, and our citizens see and feel the impacts of climate change already. As confirmed in the outcomes of the most recent UNFCCC COP28 in Dubai, governments are now focused on taking action to minimise temperature change, and to adapt to the unavoidable impacts. Today’s Communication, alongside the European Climate Risk Assessment, contributes to this work.
On our continent, extreme weather events have increased in recent years as temperatures have continued to rise. 2023 was the hottest year on record, and major storms, floods, droughts and forest fires struck different parts of Europe. In 2022, between 60,000 and 70,000 premature deaths in Europe were attributed to record-breaking summer heatwaves.
Europe will face higher overall temperatures, the risk of more intense and frequent heatwaves, prolonged droughts, more intensive precipitation, lower average wind speeds and less snow. Europe is heating at twice the global rate and will have to learn to live with climate that is 3 degrees warmer, even in the best-case scenario where the global warming is limited to the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5 degrees.
The European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA) published by the European Environment Agency provides the latest analysis of how changing temperatures in Europe will affect different parts of our economy and society.
It identifies 36 key risks – divided in 5 different levels of urgency to act – and focusses on complex climate risks such as cascading and compound risks. It provides evidence to policymakers on how climate risks can influence sectoral policies. Key considerations include:
- Extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and other violent weather events are amplified by climate change and will become more frequent and destructive. But the main risk to our societal systems, such as health, food and material and immaterial assets, will occur if policy choices do not appropriately factor in climate risks.
- Several climate risks have already reached critical levels, and many more could reach critical or catastrophic levels by the end of this century, if decisive action is not taken.
- The report shows that climate risks can cascade from one system or region to another and combine with non-climatic factors (e.g. ecosystem fragmentation, pollution, unsustainable agricultural practices and water management, land use and settlement patterns, and social inequalities). It also shows that such risks are currently not well understood and are thus often underestimated. For example, mega-droughts could lead to water and food insecurity, disruptions of critical infrastructure, and threats to financial markets and stability.
- A conservative estimate is that worsening climate impacts could reduce EU GDP by about 7% by the end of the century. The cumulative additional reduction in GDP for the EU as a whole could amount to €2.4 trillion in the period from 2031 to 2050, if global warming goes more permanently beyond the 1.5 degrees threshold of the Paris Agreement. When it comes to costs linked to specific weather extremes, estimates value the costs of droughts to be €9 billion per year and those of floods to be more than €170 billion in total since 1980. In the future, annual damages in Europe from coastal flooding could exceed €1.6 trillion by 2100, with €3.9 million people exposed to coastal flooding every year.
- The scale of potential damages also risks further impacts on the competitiveness of economies and companies, geopolitical landscape (e.g., global safety, security, trade flows and economic stability), workforce and deepening social inequalities.
A report on ‘Preventing and managing disaster risk in Europe’ was also published in parallel to the Communication on 12 March. It shows that climate related risks are high on the disaster risk management agenda across Europe and that more needs to be done to consider climate related impacts in disaster risk assessments.
How can we build a climate resilient continent?
While climate impacts are already here, and risks will continue to increase, the EU can effectively get ahead of those impacts. For this, it is essential to increase the resilience of EU society and economy and better adapt and prepare to climate risks to protect citizens, their livelihoods, the competitiveness of our industries and ensure our future prosperity. The implementation of the 2021 EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change is well underway. EU countries are improving actions on adaptation and they have made first steps including EU countries climate resilience in their draft National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs). However, more efforts on adaptation and building climate resilience are fundamental.
These efforts on climate resilience and climate adaptation must go hand in hand with our existing climate commitments driving down emissions and global warming. The EU is taking action with ambitious legislation and targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and become climate-neutral by 2050.
In response to the European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA), the Commission’s Communication on managing climate risks proposes several horizontal measures to make decision-making processes fit for addressing climate risks. These are grouped into four categories: improved governance, tools for risk-owners, harnessing structural policies, and financing climate resilience.
- Governance: It is essential to identify risk owners between the EU, national, regional and local levels. The Commission will make sure the EU level processes better embed climate risks without duplicating efforts and calls on Member States to check that they have adequate capacities for addressing risks. The Commission will also explore how to facilitate and streamline the implementation of EU level requirements relating to climate risks.
- Tools: The Commission will improve access to data, models and scenarios needed for informed decision-making, from early warning systems to long-term planning. The Commission will continue to support capacity-building, provide guidelines and leverage the use of existing tools, such as the Copernicus Climate Change Service or the Galileo Emergency Warning Satellite Service. The Communication stresses the importance of administrative capacities and explains tools to help national, regional and local administrations in embedding climate risks in decision-making processes. Furthermore, the Communication also stresses the importance to monitor and fight climate disinformation.
- Structural policies: The Commission calls on Member States to make sure their spatial planning and measures to protect critical infrastructure reflect climate risks. The Commission will also seek to strengthen the EU solidarity mechanisms, so they better incentivise the anticipation of risks.
- Financing climate resilience: The Commission will make sure climate resilience is an integral part of all relevant EU spending and work with the financial sector to better mobilise public and private investment. The Commission calls on Member States to consider climate resilience when including environmental sustainability as a criterion in public procurement, for example through accelerated implementation of the relevant provisions of the Net-Zero Industry Act. The Commission will convene a temporary Reflection Group on mobilising Climate Resilience Financing. The Reflection Group will bring together key industrial players and representatives of public and private financial institutions to reflect on how to facilitate climate resilience finance.
What are the sectoral clusters where specific actions are proposed by the Commission?
As shown in the Commission Communication and the European Climate Risk Assessment, climate risks threaten all societal systems and policy areas. The same hazards can impact several societal functions. Some solutions can address risks in several sectors. The focus should in any case be on systemic approaches.
The Commission puts forward in its Communication a series of new and existing key actions on selected impact clusters, namely natural ecosystems, health, food, infrastructure and built environment, economy and water.
- Natural ecosystems: The Commission will continue to promote healthy ecosystems which support societal functions, including prevention of forest disturbances and protection of marine ecosystems. To maintain and restore the resilience of ecosystems and the services they provide, approximatively 30-50% of Earth’s land, freshwater and oceans will need to be preserved. Together with the Member States, the Commission will work on guidance on developing climate resilient landscapes that can buffer the impacts of climate chance.
- Water: Water-risks cut across all major sectors considered in the Communication. Water plays a fundamental role in sustaining life and prosperity. The Commission will take stock of water issues comprehensively, building upon the findings of the ongoing assessments of River Basin and Flood Risk Management Plans, as well as of the marine Programmes of Measures put in place by the Member States and on that basis consider the need for action.
- Health: Climate change is impacting human health, for instance heatwave-related deaths, influence on non-communicable diseases and climate-sensitive infectious diseases such as dengue. In the context of ongoing work, the Commission will strengthen the Climate and Health Observatory and consider further action to protect workers exposed to high heat.
- Food: Food security is affected by climate change in its four pillars: availability, access, utilisation and stability. As part of the discussions for improving food security in the EU, the Commission will continue to work with the Member States on future-proofing EU food production. It will be necessary to create options for adaptation actions at the level of agricultural farms or fishing operations, with adequate support measures for the transition to resilient farming and fishing and sustainable incomes for farmers.
- Infrastructure and built environment: Infrastructure assets are at significant risk from floods, wildfires, high temperatures and other extreme events. The Commission will seek to make building and infrastructure design standards better equipped to address climate risks, and to promote better incorporation of climate risks into transport and energy infrastructure planning, supported with relevant guidelines.
- Economy: Each climate change-related disaster will put additional strain on the economy, through loss of productivity and life, direct damage, reduced growth potential and pressure on public budgets. The Commission will continue its work on helping EU companies, notably SMEs, to better manage climate risks, by making sure the evidence is reflected in various EU processes, including in assessing vulnerabilities in supply chains. Work is also underway to develop the projection of climate impacts on debt sustainability.
Most EU sectoral policies have processes and approaches in place to consider climate risks in policy and decision-making as well as implementation. The Commission will take steps to ensure that this becomes more systematic.
Which are the potential costs of these climate risks and how can we protect people and prosperity?
A conservative estimate is that worsening climate impacts could reduce EU GDP by about 7% by the end of the century. Improving preparedness and resilience against climate impacts will have positive spill-over effects and will make achieving other objectives cheaper and easier. For instance, investments in climate-resilient buildings, transport and energy system could create significant business opportunities, and benefit more widely to the European economy, generating highly skilled jobs, and affordable clean energy. Climate-resilient spatial and urban planning and resilient landscapes will provide co-benefits with a healthier living environment and well-being of Europeans.
Investing in resilience from the outset of an infrastructure project means the asset will be better able to withstand extreme weather conditions so that ad-hoc reconstruction and recovery expenses are avoided. Every euro needed to repair damage is a euro not spent on a more productive investment. Conversely, every euro spent on prevention and preparedness will bring benefits for all, going beyond the initial investment[1]. Planning decisions of today need to build on a sound anticipatory assessment of risks[2].
The climate risks facing Europe cannot be addressed in isolation from other societal challenges. The best, lasting solutions are those that secure multiple benefits. The evidence in the EUCRA report points to several areas where cross-cutting solutions may help remove barriers to adaptation to climate change. This is why a systemic approach is needed.
How does the Commission’s Communication address international climate risks?
While the EUCRA report and the Commission Communication are focused on building climate resilience in Europe, adaptation to climate change remains a key topic of engagement with international partners. The EU and Member States continue working closely with partner countries, as set out in the 2021 EU Adaptation Strategy.
The EU Global Gateway, the EU’s comprehensive strategy worth €300 billion, the Economic and Investment Plans designed for the EU Southern neighbourhood, Eastern partnership and the Western Balkans can offer tools for mitigating climate risks at global level.
The EU will also continue to foster climate resilience and climate risk management, contributing to climate adaptation and conflict prevention in its climate diplomacy tools that leverage European experiences in bilateral discussions (e.g. Green Alliances and Green Partnerships) and in relevant UN and other multilateral fora (G7, G20, OECD, WEF, WTO).
The Commission will look into the possibility of organising an international symposium on managing Global Climate Risks in 2025, bringing together government representatives, financiers, and expert organisations around the world.
More Information
[1] 2021 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank “Economics for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness: Investment in Disaster Risk management in Europe Makes Economic Sense”
Press remarks by Executive Vice-President Šefčovič and Commissioner Hoekstra on the Communication on managing climate risks in Europe to protect people and prosperity
Strasbourg, 12 March 2024
Opening remarks by Executive Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič
Good afternoon.
The College adopted today a Communication on managing climate risks in Europe to protect the people and prosperity, which I will present with Commissioner Hoekstra.
The average global temperature in the last 12 months exceeded pre-industrial levels by 1.5°C.
It is very clear that 2023 was the warmest year on record.
And what is very important for all of us, Europeans, to know is that Europe is the fastest-warming continent. Since the 1980s, the warming here was about twice the global rate.
The first-ever European Climate Risk Assessment – published by the European Environment Agency – provides a conservative estimate that worsening climate impacts could reduce the GDP of the European Union by about 7% by the end of this century.
Some regions, such as Southern Europe, or coastal and rural areas, will face stronger pressures than the rest of Europe. And so will farmers and foresters.
It is in this context that we presented today’s Communication on climate resilience to the College of Commissioners and it was adopted there.
The EEA’s assessment sounds in this regard yet another alarm bell. If indeed one more was needed.
But the warning serves little purpose if it does not come with a response.
So, our Communication today is a call to action, at all levels.
We highlight four main areas of action, while also inviting the Member States to implement the existing policies and update their national energy and climate plans due in June.
First, as we look at all this complex issue that we should be clear about how the responsibility to act on climate risks is distributed between the EU and the Member States, and how we can ensure better coordination between national, regional, and local levels.
On the Commission side, we will embed climate risks in the Better Regulation requirements, by applying a climate consistency check.
Second, we need to improve access to high quality and easily understandable climate data. This is vital for informed decision-making on long-term planning or early warning systems.
As you know, Europe has a strong climate data track record, with the Copernicus satellite system being a global reference, and increasingly a tool for planning and responding to climate impacts.
The Commission and EEA will work to improve the data and tools available to our Member States and other stakeholders.
Third, we need to improve land use and planning in our Member States. We need to protect critical infrastructure against climate risks, and ensure that the various EU solidarity mechanisms are adequately resourced.
To illustrate, between 2002 and 2024, the EU Solidarity Fund mobilised over 8.6 billion euros to address more than a hundred natural disasters.
But the pressure on these resources has been growing. It makes more sense to invest in resilience – to reduce the need for crisis response.
This brings me to the fourth area of action: finance where we need to make sure that all relevant EU programmes under the post-2027 financial framework contribute to climate resilience.
And Member States also need to factor it into their spending. This includes public procurement, which accounts for 14% of EU GDP – and infrastructure decisions, in particular.
Non-price criteria, such as environmental sustainability, in competitive tenders should be considered, for instance.
Currently, there are no reliable assessments of how well EU infrastructure will be able to function in the changing conditions. But loss of access to energy, transport or communications would quickly disrupt entire societies.
To conclude, I would like to recall that a month ago, we both were here to lay down an important stepping stone in our path to climate neutrality, by recommending to define a 2040 target to reduce emissions by 90 percent.
I then said that we needed to provide certainty and predictability for investment decisions. Because we want to see Europe as a prime destination for green investment and a prime source of green jobs at all skill levels.
Today, we stress that climate resilience is a matter of survival – and not figuratively. It is a matter of economic survival at best.
Every euro needed to repair damage is a euro not spent on a more productive investment.
Moreover, investments in climate-resilient buildings, transport and energy system could even create significant business opportunities and jobs.
These are investments the whole world will be making in the coming years.
I am sure that you have heard us say many times that Europe must lead on clean technologies. We also need to lead on climate resilient or risk management technologies and information systems.
Finally, all this rhymes well with the outcome of COP28 in Dubai, which includes a call for all countries to have their adaptation plans in place by 2030.
So, as I said a couple of minutes ago, we have received another warning sign of the climate risks facing Europe. But we are also presenting a response.
Thank you.
—
Opening remarks by Commissioner Hoekstra
Ladies and gentlemen,
A very good afternoon to all of you.
We all remember last year’s truly catastrophic wildfires in Greece, the floods in Slovenia and storm Hans in Scandinavia.
And naturally, droughts, heatwaves, floods have been part of our lives and have been part of generations before us.
But what is worrying is their increasing frequency and also their severity.
The science as Executive Vice-President Šefčovič has said is crystal clear.
And the first-ever European Climate Risk Assessment report published yesterday confirms this unfortunately once more.
Climate impact will unfortunately continue to get worse, before it gets better.
It is inevitable and it at times may feel overwhelming.
And yes, climate change consequences are to some extent now inevitable. But if there is a bit of a silver lining, it is that they can and should be managed better than we do today.
That is precisely what we are setting out today in this piece of Communication.
We are showing how the EU and its Member States can better manage the growing climate risks that will happen.
These climate risks are claiming more and more lives and challenging our prosperity and economic competitiveness all across Europe.
Ladies and gentlemen, what we present today is, if you will, a direction of travel.
For the first time, we are presenting an overview of possible solutions.
We already have many instruments available to ensure we become climate resilient.
And even in the best-case of scenarios, we need to prepare for a temperature rise of, as Maroš has said, at least 3 degrees in Europe.
Even if we manage to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees globally. That is simply the reality we face at our continent.
The good news is that we do have the tools to at least reduce the damage that is caused by climate impact.
Of course, the first tool, and that is the tool we frequently talk about, is mitigation and driving down emissions.
As you know we have already taken important steps on that front, through the European Green Deal.
But today’s Communication is about the far less talked-about part of climate action – which is adaptation.
What we are talking about here is building climate resilient societies and economies.
It seeks to make sure that the European Union and all of its Member States can maintain people’s livelihoods and businesses’ competitiveness when we work together.
For that, it is essential to have clarity on who owns the risks, so that we can actually act effectively.
And this way, we can better prepare as the European Union, as national governments, as regional governments and as local governments.
With the strong data that we have, and that we will further improve, we can also effectively help Member States as a union, we can help regional authorities and local communities to basically plan better for what is ahead.
So, this Communication is also about knowledge if you will.
It is about insight. It is about analysis.
Take for example the Galileo satellites. In 2025, we will deploy the Galileo Emergency Warning Satellite service.
That will mean that this will allow to send alerts messages directly to our population, to the population of areas threatened by a disaster.
And that is even the case when no network is available.
I think we can all envision what that would imply for the citizens that are being put in harm’s way.
Ladies and gentlemen, climate risks impact all sectors. From natural ecosystems, water and food, to health, economy and of course infrastructure.
Everything and everyone are affected by climate change.
So, we need to limit the costs of damages and invest smartly.
It is better to anticipate risks than to keep reacting to disasters.
Just to give you a few numbers because they are so intimidating. The total economic damage of the 2021 floods in Belgium and Germany was roughly around €44 billion.
The damages in Slovenia following the floods amounted to, we recalibrated the number, 16% of GDP.
And in case you might find it difficult to calibrate: That is absolutely huge. It is absolutely huge in terms of impact.
Therefore, it is important that risks should not be underestimated in public budgets.
Citizens, businesses: We all gain from building resilience to a changing climate.
This requires public as well as private investment to manage climate risks.
And for that, we need to explore how to better mobilise the finances at hand.
I have talked about Europe because that is the continent the report and our Communication focuses on.
As said it is a continent that warms faster than any other continent in the world.
But of course, climate resilience simply does not stop at our borders and we get a lot of questions about it also from our friends from abroad.
We will continue to talk to our partners around the world and exchange our experiences, our best practices on the topic wherever we can.
Global action to address climate resilience in parallel with reducing emissions simply is vital for future prosperity. Here but also abroad.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In conclusion, 2023 was the hottest year on record.
Our fantastic EU Copernicus satellite service show us that the global average temperature for the preceding 12 months had surpassed the threshold of 1.5 which we have set in the Paris Agreement.
With tools like this, we can both see what is happening and we can see what is coming.
And this communication is, if you will, a first call, but there will be more, and there will be more action on this in the years to come. Again at a European, a national, a regional and a local level.
We can get prepared.
Managing climate risks needs to be stepped up, we need to start with that right now.
It is a duty we feel for all of us, simply to make sure that our people and our businesses, and future generations can prosper under what unfortunately will be a changing climate.
Thank you.
Source – EU Commission