Provides a comprehensive evaluation of Europe’s current and future climate risks. It synthesizes existing knowledge from various sources, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
Key Findings
- Identification of Major Climate Risks:
- Identifies 36 major European climate risks into five broad clusters: ecosystems, food, health, infrastructure, and economy and finance.
- These risks include rising temperatures, floods, droughts, wildfires, ecosystem destruction, health hazards, and social catastrophes.
- Urgency and Severity of Risks:
- More than half of the identified risks require immediate action, with eight being particularly urgent. These urgent risks primarily concern the conservation of ecosystems, protection against heat, floods, and wildfires, and securing the viability of European solidarity mechanisms like the EU Solidarity Fund.
- Southern Europe is highlighted as particularly vulnerable, facing severe impacts from extreme heat, droughts, and wildfires.
- Complex and Compound Risks:
- Emphasizes the complexity of climate risks, including compound hazards (combinations of various climatic and non-climatic hazards), cascading risks (risks that propagate through systems and sectors), and cross-border risks (risks impacting Europe from outside its borders).
- Standard quantitative risk assessment approaches may be challenging to apply to these complex risks, necessitating more nuanced and integrated methods.
- Social Justice Implications:
- Addresses the social justice implications of climate risks, identifying the most affected European regions and the most vulnerable population groups. It stresses the need for equitable climate risk management.
- Policy Recommendations:
- Calls for stronger policy action to reduce climate risks across various sectors, including ecosystems, food production, health, and infrastructure. It highlights the need for a precautionary policy approach to hedge against uncertainties and unlikely but plausible scenarios.
- A systems approach is recommended to increase Europe’s resilience to climate change, transcending sector silos and isolated risk drivers to better account for cascading and compounding risks.
- Identifies governance barriers and emphasizes the shared responsibility between the EU and its Member States in managing climate risks.
Specific Risks and Recommendations
- Ecosystems: Urgent action is needed to protect coastal and marine ecosystems facing severe risks.
- Food: Crop failures and reduced yields due to prolonged drought and excessive heat are critical risks, especially in Southern Europe.
- Health: Heatwaves pose the gravest and most urgent risk to human health, affecting vulnerable groups such as outdoor workers, the elderly, and those in poorly built dwellings.
- Infrastructure: Increased frequency and severity of weather events threaten Europe’s built environment and critical services, including energy, water, and transport.
- Economy and Finance: Climate extremes pose substantial risks to public finances, potentially reducing tax revenues and increasing government expenditure.
Overview
Part A Setting the scene
Examines the challenges of climate change in Europe, highlighting the increasing risks of extreme weather events and their impacts on various sectors. It emphasizes the vulnerability of different regions and the need for proactive adaptation strategies. The importance of integrating climate considerations into policy frameworks and the need for collaborative efforts and knowledge-sharing among countries are also underscored.
Part B Thematic factsheets
Delves into a detailed exploration of thematic areas significantly impacted by European climate change. Each thematic factsheet analyzes specific sectors in-depth, highlighting environmental changes’ challenges, vulnerabilities, and projected impacts.
Terrestrial and Freshwater Ecosystems:
- Climate change impacts on terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, including degradation. It highlights the need for conservation and adaptation, emphasizing their role in biodiversity, soil health, and services. The threats to their sustainability from invasive species, pathogens, and climate shifts are also addressed.
Marine and Coastal Ecosystems:
- The factsheets examine climate change effects on marine biodiversity, including sea-level rise, and underline the need for sustainable practices due to marine ecosystems’ vulnerability. They emphasize the importance of robust coastal planning and adaptation strategies to bolster the resilience of these ecosystems.
Water Security:
- Addresses climate change’s effect on Europe’s water resources, including scarcity, quality, and availability. It highlights the necessity for sustainable management and planning, considers the impacts of extreme weather on infrastructure, and emphasizes risk mitigation strategies.
Food Production and Food Security:
- Explores climate change’s impact on Europe’s agriculture and food security, including crop yields, livestock, and supply chains. It highlights sustainable agriculture, resilience, adaptation, and the effects on food access, nutrition, and health.
Human Health:
- Reviews climate change’s impact on European health, including environmental changes, air pollution, extreme heat, and diseases. The factsheets highlight vulnerable populations to climate-related health risks and emphasize the importance of preparedness, early warning systems, and strategies to mitigate health effects and enhance community resilience.
Energy:
- Covers Europe’s energy systems’ climate change impacts, emphasizing extreme weather challenges and the shift to renewables. It underscores the vulnerabilities of energy infrastructure and the need for resilience. It also explores opportunities for sustainable solutions, efficiency improvements, and innovative technologies to combat climate change impacts.
Built Environment:
- Discusses climate change’s impact on Europe’s infrastructure and cities. It stresses the need for climate-resilient design and planning due to risks from extreme weather, sea-level rise, and temperature changes. It also highlights the opportunities for green infrastructure, sustainable materials, and smart city solutions.
EU Outermost Regions:
- Highlights climate change’s impacts on these areas, like extreme weather and sea-level rise. It emphasizes the need for tailored adaptation strategies, sustainable development, and cross-sector cooperation. The section also explores ways to enhance resilience, promote biodiversity, and support local communities’ adaptation to climate change for sustainable development.
Part C Risk storylines
Part C of the “European Climate Risk Assessment” presents Risk Storylines exploring potential climate impacts on various European sectors, including ecosystems, water and food security, health, energy, and the built environment. The narratives underline the need for conservation, sustainable management, adaptation, resilience strategies, and cross-sectoral collaboration to combat climate hazards, emphasizing the urgency of proactive risk management and climate action.
Extreme heat and prolonged drought:
- Discusses climate change-induced heatwaves and droughts in Europe, which impact human health, agriculture, and ecosystems. It highlights water scarcity, crop failures, wildfires, and food security issues. The importance of early warnings, urban heat adaptation, sustainable water management, and drought-resistant farming to mitigate impacts is underlined.
Large-scale flooding:
- Outlines Europe’s increased precipitation and flooding risks, including infrastructure harm, displacement, water pollution, and transport issues. It emphasizes the importance of flood mapping, early alerts, floodplain control, and robust infrastructure. It also considers green infrastructure and flood-resistant designs as climate adaptation methods.
Forest disturbances and carbon sinks:
- Covers climate change impacts on European forests, such as wildfires, pests, and tree mortality. It discusses their effects on carbon storage and ecosystem services and emphasizes sustainable management, biodiversity, reforestation, forest resilience, and carbon capture. It may also consider adaptation strategies and ways to decrease carbon emissions from disturbances.
Infectious diseases:
- Outlines the influence of climate change on infectious diseases in Europe, focusing on its effect on vectors like mosquitoes and ticks, and disease transmission. It stresses the need for surveillance, public health measures, community involvement, climate-resilient health systems, and research on climate-health interactions.
Major disruptions of critical infrastructure:
- Underscores key infrastructure vulnerability to climate hazards, such as energy, transport, and communication. It flags potential service disruptions and economic losses from extreme weather and sea-level rise. The need for resilience planning, risk assessments, climate-proof investments, cross-sector coordination, and public-private partnerships is highlighted to ensure service continuity.
Disruption of international supply chains:
- Examines the risks of climate-related disruptions to Europe’s international supply chains, such as extreme weather, geopolitical tensions, and trade disruptions. It emphasizes the need for supply chain resilience and diversification strategies, contingency planning, stakeholder collaboration, enhanced transparency, and digital technologies in managing these risks.
Stability of financial markets and public finances:
- Concerns climate change’s effects on Europe’s financial markets and public funds, outlining physical, transition, and liability risks. It underscores the importance of climate risk disclosure, stress tests, and scenario analysis. It also promotes sustainable finance, green investments, and climate-resilient fiscal planning for financial stability.
Part D From Climate Risks Towards Societal Preparedness
Promotes climate risk preparedness and emphasizes risk incorporation in decision-making, proactive planning, and adaptation. It covers stakeholder roles, climate-resilient infrastructure investment benefits, sustainable land use, and ecosystem adaptation and promotes innovation and knowledge exchange.
Synthesis: Major climate risks for Europe:
- Provides a detailed summary of Europe’s major climate risks. It combines findings from risk assessments, focusing on the most important threats, such as extreme weather, sea-level rise, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and health impacts. It also discusses emerging risks and trends that could intensify the impacts of climate change in Europe.
Social justice and cohesion:
- Concerns Europe’s social aspects of climate change adaptation, highlighting how climate risks exacerbate inequalities, particularly for vulnerable communities. It advocates for inclusive climate policies promoting social cohesion and equity, addressing climate justice, community involvement, and empowering marginalized groups.
EU adaptation policies and risk ownership:
- Examines EU climate risk management and resilience enhancement through adaptation policies, emphasizing integration, clear responsibilities, coordination, multi-level governance, stakeholder engagement, and alignment with broader EU goals, like the European Green Deal.
Priorities for action:
- Suggests strategies to boost Europe’s climate resilience. It outlines action plans and investments to lessen climate risks with clear goals, timelines, and targets and promotes innovation and collaboration. Key areas to address climate risks include infrastructure, agriculture, health, and finance.
