Europe is warming about twice as fast as the global average. In 2024, the five-year average temperature in Europe reached 2.4°C above pre-industrial levels. Climate change is no longer just an abstract threat future, but an everyday reality that brings extreme weather events such as devastating floods, droughts and record heat waves. In the summer of 2025 alone, more than 1 million hectares of forest burned in the EU and heat waves caused an estimated 24,000 premature deaths. Despite these alarming facts, the current European Union approach to climate change adaptation is still too fragmented, piecemeal and, above all, reactive. If Europe is to protect its citizens, its economy and its strategic priorities, it must move towards a proactive and systemic framework.

Escalating and cascading risks: The price of inaction

Economic losses caused by extreme weather are constantly increasing. Damage to infrastructure and physical property alone reached an average of €45 billion per year in the EU between 2020 and 2024. Current climate-related losses in agriculture are estimated at €28 billion per year, and could increase to €40 billion by mid-century.

However, these risks do not operate in isolation. Climate threats are highly interconnected and create cascading effects, which cross national borders. For example, prolonged droughts will cause soil to harden, which in turn will drastically worsen the consequences of torrential rains and floods. Such phenomena directly threaten the functioning of the European single market, supply chains and financial stability. Outages in one key sector (such as energy or transport) can quickly spread to the entire economy. For states, this means lower tax revenues and higher unplanned expenditure on damage repair, which worsens their debt sustainability and reduces the fiscal space for future investments in adaptation.

From partial changes to transformational adaptation

Historically, adaptation has focused on incremental (gradual) changes – that is, minor adjustments to existing practices, such as changing crop planting dates or slightly raising flood barriers. However, with the increasing intensity of climate change, these measures are no longer sufficient and are reaching their limits. If we look at adaptation too narrowly, we risk the so-called. maladaptation – i.e. taking measures that will help in the short term but worsen the situation in the long term (for example, massive reliance on energy-intensive air conditioning or water desalination).

Europe therefore urgently needs transformational adaptation. These are fundamental, large-scale and systemic changes that address not only the consequences, but also the causes of vulnerability. This could include, for example, a comprehensive change in land-use planning in coastal areas or a complete transformation of agricultural models. Such steps must be taken proactively and „by design“, not as a reaction to a disaster. Properly set adaptation brings the so-called „triple dividend“: it reduces direct losses from disasters, brings economic development benefits and provides other social and environmental benefits.

Five key recommendations for systemic change in the EU

According to the latest report from the European Scientific Advisory Panel on Climate Change, the EU needs to rebuild its adaptation framework based on five main recommendations:

1. Harmonization of climate risk assessment: The EU must systematically require climate risk assessments across all its policies and in major decisions. Currently, these assessments are fragmented and often underestimate real threats. It is essential to establish common climate scenarios and methodological standards that take into account not only average changes, but also extremes and the transfer of risks across borders.
2. Adoption of a common framework of reference for planning: EU adaptation plans should prepare for the physical risks arising from an emissions pathway that corresponds to a global warming of 2.8 to 3.3°C by 2100 (SSP2-4.5 scenario). As Europe warms faster, local impacts will be even more pronounced. More stringent stress-testing scenarios are also needed to ensure that infrastructure and policies are resilient to the worst-case scenarios.
3. Setting a vision and measurable goals by 2050: The EU needs a clear vision of a climate-resilient society, supported by sectoral strategies and concrete, measurable adaptation targets for 2030 and 2040. Unlike emissions reduction efforts, European adaptation so far lacks hard targets, making it difficult to track real progress.
4. Just resilience embedded in all policies: Principle „"climate resilience by design" must apply to all EU programmes and investments. A prerequisite is the establishment of a robust monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) system that allows policies to be continuously adjusted in line with new scientific knowledge. A key element of this is also a framework for assessing equity, ensuring that the costs of adaptation are not borne by the most vulnerable groups.
5. Investment mobilization and comprehensive financial risk management: The EU must integrate climate risk management directly into economic and fiscal planning (e.g. through the European Semester). The growing challenge is enormous climate insurance protection gap – currently only around a quarter of economic losses caused by extreme weather are insured in the EU, with only 8% of low-income households insured. The EU must support the insurance market and strengthen crisis response instruments (such as the EU Solidarity Fund) to incentivise proactive risk reduction and rebuilding infrastructure to be more resilient (so-called ‘build back better’).

Justice and solidarity as central pillars

Climate change does not affect everyone equally. Vulnerable groups of the population (elderly people, children, low-income households, outdoor workers) and specific regions (e.g. southern Europe, threatened by extreme heat and drought, or coastal areas) face disproportionately higher risks. Those most at risk often have the lowest capacity to adapt.

If we rely only on local and private efforts, these inequalities will only deepen. Therefore, the central principle of the so-called. just resilience. Policies must proactively target the root causes of vulnerability through cohesion policy funds and targeted social measures. At the same time, intergenerational justice must be taken into account – so that our (often short-sighted) adaptation decisions today do not leave future generations with unsustainable debts and unsolvable climate conditions.

Reducing emissions greenhouse gas emissions remains an absolute priority to avert the crossing of critical tipping points in the climate system. However, given the warming that is no longer avoidable, massive investments in adaptation are a matter of basic security and survival. The European Union is facing a decisive period. By translating these scientific recommendations into a strong legislative and financial framework, it can not only minimise the inevitable damage, but also build a more prosperous and long-term resilient society, ready for the challenges of the 21st century. JRi&CO2AI

Source: Strengthening climate resilience in Europe