News Archive
Fifty cities commit to going above and beyond for the environment
07 Jun 2021The European Commission’s Green City Accord has hit a milestone number of cities willing to adopt even more ambitious environmental protection targets. Alba Iulia (Romania), Košice (Slovakia) and Grenoble (France), the European Green Capital 2022, all made their commitment official. These cities join other signatories in setting ambitious targets to tackle pollution, protect nature and biodiversity, and to support the circular economy and local climate adaptation actions.
European Union Green Week 2021 achieves wide-scale mobilization for healthier people and planet
04 Jun 2021This year’s edition of the European Union (EU) Green Week, Europe’s biggest annual environmental event, has closed with record involvement from citizens and stakeholders around the EU. Dedicated to the EU ambition of a zero pollution, the event zoomed in on efforts to tackle pollution of air, soil and water, creating a world where pollution is no longer harmful for people’s health and ecosystems.
On the road to increased environment and climate capacity in the Turkish health sector
25 May 2021Members of the Turkish Health Collaboration on Climate Change and Environment Project have established the working group Climate Change & Health. With a webinar on heatwaves and health, one of the key climate themes to Turkish health participants was presented. Further webinars and materials will be launched in the next months, including an interdisciplinary briefing.
The participatory process of the Pyrenean climate change strategy gets launched
21 May 2021The future Pyrenean Climate Change Adaptation Strategy will be the first of its kind in Europe, with a transboundary nature that addresses the climate challenges of the bioregion in a cross-cutting manner. During a participatory process, several trans-Pyrenean thematic workshops will be held to come up to a complete document in early autumn 2021.
Level(s), the new EU sustainability framework for buildings includes climate resilience aspects
20 May 2021Level(s) is a new European approach to assess and report on the sustainability performance of buildings, throughout the full life cycle of buildings. Using existing standards, the Level(s) framework with its indicators provides a common language for building sustainability. In particular, some of the Level(s) indicators are also useful in ensuring the climate resilience of buildings, and have adaptation relevance as well.
European Climate Pact – everyone on board for climate action, including adaptation
19 May 2021Since its launch in December 2020, the European Climate Pact has started to roll out EU-wide activities to involve citizens, communities and organizations in climate action, including adaptation, and building a greener Europe. On the Climate Pact website more information can be found about the Pact’s network of volunteer Ambassadors, climate action pledges, and events taking place across Europe.
Assessment maps on the potential of nature-based solutions to address climate change
18 May 2021The NATURVATION project has produced 775 European Assessment Maps as well as a set of City-scale Assessment Maps on Malmö, Barcelona and Utrecht. The European maps show the potential of nature-based solutions to address climate change adaptation and mitigation across 775 European cities.
Making Copernicus Climate Change Data easily accessible through the European Climate Data Explorer
17 May 2021The European Climate Data Explorer, developed jointly by the Copernicus Climate Change Services (C3S) and the EEA, provides easy access to climate variables and climate impact indicators from the C3S Climate Data Store. It also enables zooming in on maps to focus on smaller regions of interest; it includes time series for specific regions, and users can export images and data. This new tool is intended to support European countries to develop and implement their national, subnational and local climate adaptation strategies. It will be expanded in the future with further indices, new data sources and additional functionalities.
Advisory bodies can reinforce the role of science in climate policy, including adaptation
11 May 2021Efforts in tackling climate change at national level across Europe can be made more effective by robust governance frameworks as well as well-functioning, well-resourced advisory bodies. An EEA briefing has analysed the institutional settings for policy-making on mitigation at the national level in Europe, the role played by advisory bodies and their influence on policy decisions. Although the focus of the analysis was predominantly mitigation, some advisory bodies were found to focus on adaptation as well.
Global warming could more than double costs caused by drought in Europe
10 May 2021In the absence of action to limit and adapt to climate change, the impact of droughts on Europe’s economy could reach over €65 billion a year by 2100, according to a Joint Research Centre study published in Nature Climate Change.