Europe blazes trail against climate change. [Abridged]
04 March 2015 by Andy Coghlan
AS CHAOS from climate change ramps up in the coming decades, making floods, droughts and heatwaves commonplace, Europe will be ready. So says the European Environment Agency, which launched its five-year assessment of the state of Europe’s environment in Copenhagen, Denmark, this week.
A key message is that we must prepare now for the catastrophes that will become more frequent if the world warms up as predicted. “Many of the decisions we make today will determine how we are going to live in 2050,” said Hans Bruyninckx, executive director of the agency, at the launch of The European Environment State and Outlook 2015.
Unlike other rich nations such as the US and Australia, Europe has embraced the reality of climate change and is blazing a trail in preparation for what is to come. The European Union has agreed to spend 20 per cent of its budget of €960 billion for 2014 to 2020 on mitigating climate change and adapting to its effects. The money is expected to boost efforts to climate-proof Europe. “Countries must decide what to use it on, and make sure it’s used properly,” says Stéphane Isoard, the agency’s specialist on adaptation to climate change.
Dozens of projects are already in various phases of readiness with the help of earlier funding. The top reason cited by 28 out of 30 national authorities for going ahead with such projects is the impact of previous extreme weather events, according to a survey published in October. Next, for 17 out of 30, came the heavy economic costs of storm or flood damage. For example, the European Commission estimates that between 1980 and 2011, floods killed more than 2500 people and adversely affected another 5.5 million in Europe, while causing economic losses exceeding €90 billion.
As a result, 13 countries now have adaptation projects up and running, and another 33 have action plans or national adaptation strategies in place. Whether they will ultimately be enough to protect people in Europe will depend on the vagaries of climate change. But the costs of doing nothing could be even greater. The EC estimates that the annual cost to the EU of not adapting to climate change could rise to €100 billion by 2020 and €250 billion by 2050. Isoard can’t say if it’s possible to climate-proof our future, but given the success of flood management plans, for example, the introduction of the new projects is “clearly a very positive sign”.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Climate-proofing Europe”