The European Commission on Tuesday published its plan for managing risks made worse by climate change, such as floods and wildfires.
Rather than mitigating climate change, the plan "is about the far-less talked about part of climate action, which is adaptation," said the European Union's climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra. "What we are talking about here is building climate-resilient societies and economies," he said at a press conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
The plan aims to ensure the EU is adequately prepared to deal with the increased risk of climate-related problems such as "droughts, floods, forest fires, diseases, crop failures or heatwaves," a commission press release said.
The EU has already committed in law to reduce the bloc's contribution to climate change, in particular by bringing net carbon emissions down to zero by 2050.
But the strategy published on Tuesday is intended to deal with the consequences of rising global temperatures. It follows the first ever climate risk assessment by the European Environment Agency (EEA), published on Monday, which said the EU is inadequately prepared.
The EEA assessment called on EU member states to work together at a regional and local level to tackle climate change risks with precautionary measures. According to the EEA report, "Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world."
A document outlining the commission's strategy said the "best-case scenario" for climate change is one where global temperatures rise by no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But that scenario would still mean a rise of three degrees in Europe, and "exponentially more heatwaves and other weather extremes."
Summarizing the plan at the press conference, commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič highlighted four components.
The first is dividing responsibilities among the EU and national, regional and local governments.
"Second, we need to improve access to high quality and easily understandable climate data," he said.
"Third, we need to improve land use and planning in our member states," as well as better protect critical infrastructure
The fourth component, Šefčovič said, is to ensure all current EU spending programmes "contribute to climate resilience." Similarly, "member states also need to factor it into their spending," particularly in public procurement, he added.
The commission's plan said regional and national governments in EU countries need to ensure they properly understand the particular risks they face, which will differ throughout Europe.
For example, the EEA risk assessment on Monday said that while some regions face increased flooding, "southern Europe can expect considerable declines in overall rainfall and more severe droughts."
The EEA report said rising heat poses a threat to energy transmission. Heat could affect power lines, while droughts would reduce the amount of water available for cooling in nuclear power plants.
On Tuesday, the strategy document said information about such risks should be available to investors, and incorporated into the planning and maintenance of critical infrastructure.
The plan also emphasizes the need to invest in "climate resilient" infrastructure sooner so as to reduce costs later.
"Every euro needed to repair damage is a euro not spent on more productive investment," Šefčovič said.
Ronan Palmer, an economist from the climate change think tank E3G, told dpa that EU countries could struggle to find the unity to support struggling countries in the south of Europe.
"Let's just think of how the present politics in the EU is going to deal with it," he said. "All those loving, austere people in the north of Europe - Finland, Sweden and Denmark - they're not going to come rushing out with money to their friends in southern Europe," he added.
