Alpine Convention

The Alpine Convention is the international treaty signed by the eight Alpine countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Slovenia and Switzerland) and the European Union for the sustainable development and the protection of the Alps. It entered into force in 1995. The Contracting Parties adopted in 2006 a Declaration on Climate Change, complemented in 2009 by an Action Plan with specific strategic measures and best practice examples. Taking action on climate change – both adaptation and mitigation – is one of the six priorities of the Multi-Annual Work Programme of the Alpine Convention in 2017-2022. In 2017, the Alpine Climate Board was established to bundle relevant climate change activities carried out within the framework of the Alpine Convention. It developed the Alpine Climate Target System 2050, which was adopted by the Contracting Parties in 2019 in the frame of the Declaration ‘Climate-neutral and Climate-resilient Alps 2050’, and followed in 2020 by the Climate Action Plan 2.0.

The Convention works with its well-established observer network that comprises many governmental and non-governmental umbrella organisations active in the Alpine Convention’s fields of activity, including climate change adaptation.