Green Paper outlines EU action for climate change

The European Commission has published a Green Paper outlining the EU policy areas where action is needed in order to minimise the threat of climate change in Europe. One of the areas listed is research and the need to address gaps in our understanding of global warming and its impact on the environment.

The effects of climate change in Europe and the Arctic are already significant and measurable. Europe has warmed by almost 1°C over the last century, faster than the global average. This has resulted in rainfall and snowfall increasing significantly in northern Europe, while droughts are more frequently observed in southern Europe. Recent temperature extremes, such as the record-breaking 2003 summer heat wave, are consistent with man-made climate change.

Such changes in the weather are beginning to have a negative impact on the European economy, since many economic activities depend strongly on climatic conditions. An increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as storms, severe precipitation events, sea floods and flash floods, droughts, forest fires and landslides will cause damage to buildings, transport and industrial infrastructure and consequently impact indirectly on financial services and insurance sectors. Other activities and business that are expected to be hard hit include agriculture, forestry, fisheries, beach and skiing tourism, and health.

Europe therefore needs to adapt to the changing climate and quickly, according to the Green Paper 'Adapting to climate change in Europe - options for EU action'. Early action could bring clear economic benefits by anticipating and minimising threats to ecosystems, human health, economic development, property and infrastructure. But if there is no early response, 'the EU and its Member States may be forced into reactive un-planned adaptation, often abruptly as a response to increasingly frequent crises and disasters, which will prove much more costly and also threaten Europe's social and economic systems and its security,' states the paper.

The paper sets out four areas where early action can be taken at EU level. One of the areas listed is research and the need to address the complexity of interrelated factors surrounding climate change. While welcoming the emphasis placed on climate change in the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the paper notes that there are several gaps in our understanding of the impact of climate change. To address these, the paper suggests the following actions:

- develop comprehensive and integrated methodologies for the assessment of impacts, vulnerabilities and cost effective adaptation;
- improve the basic understanding and prediction of impacts in Europe, including in the North Atlantic, the Arctic, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea;
- clarify the expected impacts of climate change and ozone layer depletion on ecosystems and explore ways to enhance their resilience;
- develop long-term comprehensive and Europe-wide high resolution datasets and models;
- improve access to existing data and integrate data relevant for adaptation into INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe), SEIS (Shared Environment Information System) and GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security);
- make better use of existing Community-supported information systems, such as the European Flood Alert System, the European Forest Fires Information System, and the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) for civil protection;
- provide every four to five years up-to-date synthesis reports on climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities, based inter alia on the results from EU-funded and national research;
- support research on adaptation for businesses, services and industries;
- launch Europe-wide studies on the present and future plans of coastal regions to strengthen coastal protection, the environmental and economic costs involved in these plans, the impacts they may have on the community budget and on the economy of coastal regions;
- improve knowledge on flows and availability of resources.

The three other policy areas identified by the Green Paper are: integrating climate change adaptation actions into existing and forthcoming legislation, policy responses and funding programmes; integrating global adaptation needs into the EU's external relations and building a new alliance with partners around the world; and setting up a European advisory group on adaptation to climate change to analyse coordinated strategies and actions.

Several workshops will be organised to discuss the content of the Green Paper, while a public consultation on the document is expected to be launched in November.

Living with climate change in Europe