News Archive

CDP and the European Environment Agency (EEA) invite local and regional authorities especially Signatories to the EU Mission on Adaptation to complete the 2025 CDP Questionnaire.

Climate change, geopolitical tensions and technological advances contribute to an increasingly complex risk landscape across Europe. These risks can spread and interact across sectors, amplifying or exacerbating each other’s effects as they unfold. The Joint Research Centre analysed 47 risks spanning natural, technological, societal and geopolitical domains and calls for anticipatory governance.

Wetlands provide critical services for people and nature, such as flood control, and biodiversity support. Yet, they continue to decline due to pollution, land-use change, and climate pressures. Against this backdrop, a pilot initiative coordinated by the French Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Seine-Normandy Water Agency is exploring how biodiversity certificates can offer a new pathway for supporting and recognizing voluntary conservation efforts.

Across the EU, water supplies are under increasing pressure from pollution and the effects of climate change, among others. The EU Water Resilience Strategy, recently released by the EC, aims to restore and protect water supplies, build a water-smart economy and ensure everyone has access to clean and affordable water. An essential component is the source-to-sea approach, which takes into account the impact of pollution on the entire water system.

In order to protect employees from heat risks, employers in France must put in place new preventive measures since 1st of July 2025. The decree of 27th May 2025 includes a list of measures that an employer must take, such as adapting work processes, increasing the supply of fresh drinking water and providing training for heat mitigation.

A new interactive European Environment Agency (EEA) online assessment looks at key climate change impacts and adaptation and preparedness actions.

The yearly Eurobarometer on Climate Change surveyed 26,319 EU citizens from different social and demographic groups across all 27 EU Member States in 2025. A large majority of Europeans continue to view climate change as a serious global threat, with 85% of citizens identifying it as a major problem. As preparations advance to amend the European Climate Law to include an ambitious 2040 target, and present a new EU Climate Adaptation Plan next year, the EU remains firmly on course towards climate neutrality, grounded in innovation, shared prosperity and resilience.

This publication - with summary for policymakers - provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary assessment of the current scientific knowledge on climate change and related risks for Austria. It illustrates the range of climate impacts under different global warming levels and identifies potential mitigation strategies, adaptation measures and transformation pathways.

In partnership with UNEP, the European Commission is developing a Water Resilience Indicators Report, which will offer data-driven insights to strengthen drought preparedness worldwide. The report will support policy and decision-makers in designing more effective drought response strategies. Additionally, the Commission is contributing scientific input to the International Drought Resilience Observatory, as proposed by UNCCD in the context of the International Drought Resilience Alliance.

This recently published report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) on just resiliency, shows that although the most vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected, they are often overlooked in climate adaptation planning and especially implementation.

Innovation uptake is essential to strengthening Europe’s disaster resilience. While research continues to produce promising tools and solutions, these often struggle to transition into operational use. To help bridge this gap, the EU-funded DIREKTION project, in collaboration with the CMINE Responder Technology Cluster (RTC), has released a new Policy Brief titled: “Strengthening Responder Technology in Disasters.”

Significant water savings can be achieved in key economic sectors through new measures which will be essential to increase the European Union’s water resilience. The economic sectors with the highest water abstraction levels also have the potential to save the most water, according to a briefing by the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Three outstanding LIFE projects were awarded the LIFE Awards 2025. The winner of the LIFE Award for Climate Action was LIFE DESERT-ADAPT, a project tackling desertification by enhancing soil quality, increasing water retention capacity, and building ecosystem resilience in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

European Commission has developed a Water resilience strategy to help the EU improve the way we manage water while making our businesses more competitive and innovative. Water resilience is a matter of EU security and preparedness for floods, droughts, forest fires and pollution.

In December 2024, the German Government published its new precautionary climate adaptation strategy. It is the first of its kind in Germany to establish measurable targets for climate adaptation within the scope of responsibilities and competences of the German government, as required by section 3 of the German Federal Climate Adaptation Act, which was adopted in July 2024. The English version of the 2024 German Climate Adaptation Strategy is now available.

Based on the Norwegian national system of ranking municipalities according to their (local) physical climate risk, which was launched in 2023, an in-depth study for the Troms area in Northern Norway was carried out by the Norwegian Research Centre on Sustainable Climate Change Adaptation (Noradapt) on behalf of Troms county council. This regional study expands on the national assessment by including two additional categories of risk: transboundary climate risks (limited to risk propagated through international trade-links) and transition risks (related to obtaining new renewable energy to substitute local emissions from the combustion of fossil energy). The report is available in Norwegian with an extended English summary.

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) released a study highlighting the importance of clearer, and more consumer-friendly information disclosures regarding the natural catastrophe coverage of home insurance policies. EIOPA's analysis of Insurance Product Information Documents shows that many insurers demonstrate good practices in disclosing essential information. However, there is still room for improvement in ensuring that consumers can make better informed decisions.

Aligned with the priority action of the 2022-2024 Climate-ADAPT Strategy, the 5 Climate-ADAPT multi-language versions have been extended to all 24 official EU languages and 3 non-EU languages (Icelandic, Norwegian, and Turkish). They are accessible from the top right menu. Those are machine-based translations without human quality assurance. Since the quality can differ, the translations give a basic idea of the content. Please refer to the English version for reliable knowledge.

Addressing increasing natural hazard threats, the EU funded REGILIENCE project, with ARSINOE, IMPETUS, TransformAr, and Pathways2Resilience projects, offers quick guides for local authorities. These practical tools provide clear insights, infographics, and resources for preparing for flash floods, river floods, storms, and droughts (available in English). More guides and translations are coming soon to boost climate resilience across Europe.

This 2025 publication explains the process and results of a peer review exercise in Slovenia on transformative innovation for better climate change adaptation, organized by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) in autumn 2024. The main goal of the exercise was to help the volunteering territory to define pathways towards integrating transformative innovation in their climate adaptation strategies, based on learning and exchanges with peers.

France released its third national adaptation plan (PNACC-3) to strengthen resilience against climate impacts. Published on 10 March 2025, following a two-month public consultation period, the plan aims at preparing France to an increase in average temperatures of 2°C in 2030, 2.7°C in 2050 and 4°C in 2100 compared to the pre-industrial era, as set by the reference warming trajectory for adaptation to climate change (TRACC). The entire document, including its 52 measures, is now available in English and can be found in the second link under the introduction section of the document in the reference below.

In the first 2025 issue of the European Central Bank (ECB) Economic Bulletin, the authors look at the economic impact of extreme weather events such as the devastating floods in Valencia, Spain, in 2024. It is not only the increasing frequency that is of concern. This event has shown that also the greater intensity was challenging in this region which has so far not experienced floods as often as other regions in Europe.

The OrganicClimateNET (OCN) project, funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, and co-funded by the EU, supports the integration of climate adaptation practices into organic farming, by establishing a network of 250 farms across 12 EU countries. National hubs have been set up to foster knowledge exchange, provide climate-resilience tools, and support policy engagement. Starting this summer, international cross visits between the hubs will further strengthen collaboration and knowledge transfer within the network.

The EU funding instrument LIFE released a 3-minutes video to show how the programme is driving fundamental change in the environment, economy and people’s lives. It funds over 6,000 projects, including climate change adaptation and climate action, making a difference at the local level.

More than 70% of the 167 European cities are not adapting to climate change in a consistent and coherent way, according to a research study published in Nature Climate Change. Their climate risk assessments, policy goals, adaptation measures and monitoring programmes are not aligned with the goals that societies have adopted. The study demonstrates how assessing consistency in adaptation plans can enhance understanding and help reduce the adaptation gap.