Europe is not prepared for rapidly growing climate risks
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Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world.
On 10 March 2024 the European Environment Agency published its assessment that many of the climate risks facing Europe have already reached critical levels and could become catastrophic without urgent and decisive action.
Climate risks are threatening Europe’s energy and food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial stability and people’s health,
According to the assessment, Europe’s policies and adaptation actions are not keeping pace with the rapidly growing risks. In many cases, incremental adaptation will not be sufficient and, as many measures to improve climate resilience require a long time, urgent action may be needed even on risks that are not yet critical.
The assessment identifies 36 major climate risks for Europe within five broad clusters: ecosystems, food, health, infrastructure, and economy and finance. More than half of the major climate risks identified in the report demand more action now and eight of them are particularly urgent, mainly to conserve ecosystems, protect people against heat, protect people and infrastructure from floods and wildfires, and to secure the viability of European solidarity mechanisms, such as the EU Solidarity Fund.