The key takeaways from the first European Climate Risk Assessment Report by the European Environment Agency
On the 11th of March 2024 the European Environment Agency published its first Climate Risk Assessment Report, describing in detail the current and future impacts of the climate crisis on the European continent. Rising temperatures, floods, draughts, wildfires, destruction of ecosystems and their biodiversity, health hazards and social catastrophes. These are just few of the issues mentioned in the report, that seeks to advise European institutions about the many overlapping needs of the continent and its specific regions. With firm and drastic tones, the EEA warns: the EU is unprepared for the consequences of climate change, "even under optimistic scenarios compatible with the Paris Agreement".
The report identifies and assesses 36 major climate risks for Europe, grouped into five broad clusters: ecosystems, food, health, infrastructure, and economy and finance. According to the study, more than half (21 out of the 36) major climate risks for Europe identified need more action now, with eight of them being particularly urgent. Within the continent, Southern Europe is described as the region that will suffer the hardest impacts of extreme heat and droughts, while EU outermost regions face particular risks as a result of their remote location.
What are the biggest challenges and risks mentioned in the report for the different clusters?
- Ecosystem: risks to coastal and marine ecosystems are the most severe in the current period and entail the highest urgency to act.
- Food: crop failures and reduced yields already pose a critical risk in Southern Europe during years of prolonged drought and excessive heat.
- Health: heatwaves expose a large part of the population to heat stress and often cause wildfires, which are already at critical levels in Southern Europe.
- Infrastructure: pluvial and fluvial flooding are already creating substantial risks for the built environment and population across Europe, as evidenced by various highly destructive floods in recent years.
- Economy and finance: public finances of EU Member States face substantial risks from climate change, even in the near-term. Costly climate extremes can result in reduced tax revenues and increased government expenditure.
Alongside this risk analysis, the report provides several recommendations and warnings for the EU institutions to efficiently tackle these threats:
- Climate risks are outpacing the development and implementation of EU policies: stronger policy action is urgent to reduce climate risks to ecosystems and food production, health risks from heatwaves, risks from coastal and inland flooding, and risks from wildfires. Urgent action is also needed to ensure that European solidarity mechanisms can cope with increasing climate-related disasters.
- Uncertainties and tail risks call for a precautionary policy approach: policies designed by the EU and Member States should hedge against uncertainty by developing policies that also consider the impacts of unlikely but plausible scenarios.
- A systems-approach for increasing Europe's resilience to climate change: this will help transcend sector silos and isolated risk drivers to better account for cascading and compounding risks.
- Risk ownership and governance barriers: most major climate risks for Europe identified in this report are 'co-owned' by the EU and its Member States. In many cases, this involves the EU providing policy framing whereas the Member States maintain the responsibility for designing the implementation approaches.
These are extracts from the first European Climate Risk Assessment Report by the European Environment Agency (EEA), published in March 2024. The full report and the executive summary can be accessed through the link here.