The EU’s current Adaptation Strategy was launched in 2013 with the intention to scale up the European Union’s resilience to the growing impacts of climate change that it is facing. The Strategy is the first attempt to set out EU-wide adaption and climate resilience and it sets a solid precedence for a more collective, coordinated and transboundary approach towards addressing climate impacts in Europe. However, further efforts are needed across Europe to address the challenges posed by a fast-changing climate.
The European Commission is conducting an evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy. Part of that evaluation was a public consultation to collect and identify the concerns of stakeholders and citizens across Europe.
CAN Europe welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to review and improve its Strategy to adapt to our changing climate. The EU should lead the way in reducing its GHG emissions and limiting the global temperature rise in order to avoid dangerous climate change. However, it must be acknowledged that the global and EU economy will nonetheless face devastating impacts as a consequence of 1.5°C or 2°C global average temperature increase. It is therefore essential that the EU pursues effective and coherent adaptation and disaster risk reduction efforts together with its mitigation action.
CAN Europe has made a submission to the public consultation on the future EU Adaptation Strategy.
We spell out the urgent need to scale up support for adaptation in the EU, increase awareness among state and non-state actors in relation to climate vulnerability, and to strengthen the integration of adaptation to climate change across EU policies and decisions.
Find our submission in full below:
CAN Europe paper in submission to the consultation on the EU Adaptation Strategy
