Climate change is increasing disaster risk across the globe. Europe is among the worst affected areas, experiencing increased temperatures above the global average, and facing more frequent and severe droughts, floods, extreme weather, and wildfires.
According to IPCC AR6 report current 1.1°C warmer world is already affecting natural and human systems in Europe (very high confidence).
Warming in Europe will continue to rise faster than the global mean, widening risk disparities across Europe in the 21st century (high confidence).
European regions are affected by multiple key risks, with more severe consequences in the south than 3 in the north (high confidence).
In many parts of Europe, existing and planned adaptation measures are not sufficient to avoid the residual risk, especially beyond 1.5°C
The 2020 PESETA IV study concludes that all European regions will be affected by climate change to varying degrees. Europe is experiencing a greater temperature increase than the global average, but the effects of climate change also vary within Europe:
The 2020 PESETA IV report estimates that current annual losses due to drought are around EUR 9 billion. With a 3 °C rise in temperature above pre-industrial levels, economic losses due to drought would increase to nearly EUR 45 billion annually for the EU and UK. In southern European regions, the availability of water resources would drop by 40 %, with extreme water scarcity during the summer months. Between 2006 and 2010, 15 % of the EU territory was affected by drought. Since then, between 2011 and 2019, the EU has experienced drought in all but two years (from 2013 and 2016).
By the end of the century, damage to infrastructure caused by climate change related extremes is expected to increase ten-fold.
With the current situation alone (not accounting for an increase in global temperature), the EU’s climate change losses would rise from an annual EUR 3.4 billion to EUR 37 billion by 2080, according to this global environmental report.
Despite efforts to reduce the effect of climate change and prevent global temperatures from rising 2 °C above pre-industrial times (as set out by the Paris Agreement), the effects of climate change will still increase in the coming decades due to the delayed impacts of past and current greenhouse gas emissions.
Planned, early, and flexible adaptation measures are therefore required to effectively mitigate the increasingly frequent and severe disaster risk effects.The IPCC AR6 report states that there is a strong link between sustainable development, vulnerability and climate risks. Limited economic, social and institutional resources often result in high vulnerability and low adaptive capacity, especially in developing countries.
The 2020 PESETA IV report reveals the following climate risks, in the event of a 3 °C increase in global temperatures above pre-industrial levels:
In southern and western regions of Europe, increasingly frequent and severe droughts are having a devastating effect on agriculture and water and energy supplies.
The extreme heat weather events caused by a temperature increase to 3 °C above pre-industrial times will result in a thirty-fold increase to heat related mortalities in the EU and the UK, especially affecting southern Europe, according to the PESETA IV key findings. The projected figure could be as high as 90 000 deaths annually, from the current 3 000 annual deaths. If global temperatures rise by 3 °C, nearly 300 million people in the EU and the UK would be exposed to deadly heatwaves annually.
Wildfires are projected to increase as warmer temperatures and longer periods without rain will help fires to ignite and spread. This will ultimately lead to more frequent and intense fires. The PESETA IV study estimates that the probability of high-to-extreme danger of wildfires will rise nearly everywhere in Europe.
Europe is at risk of more frequent and severe extreme weather events due to climate change (see 2020 State of the European Environment report). Extreme weather events are directly worsened by climate change and pose immediate risk to life. They are set to become more frequent and severe. In February 2018, very low temperatures and intense local rain and snow hit Europe, with total rainfall of up to 250 mm in some places. The extreme weather was nicknamed ‘the Beast from the East’ and caused severe disruption over the continent and dozens of deaths.
Flooding is the most common and economically costly natural hazard to affect Europe annually, with all EU Member States identifying it in their national risk assessments. The effects of flooding are set to worsen as a result of increased global temperatures due to increased precipitation in Northern Europe, more extreme weather events, and urban sprawl. Extreme flooding is set to worsen in Europe, especially affecting Northern Europe, putting more people at risk of death, waterborne disease, and injury. Flooding is also severely destructive to infrastructure, expected to cost the EU EUR 7.8 billion annually for river flooding and EUR 1.4 billion for coastal flooding, according to the 2020 PESETA IV report.
The September 2019 Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate indicates that due to climate change, the ocean is warmer, more acidic, and less productive. This will exacerbate the loss of glaciers, snow, ice, and permafrost, and accelerate sea level rise. Additionally, coastal extreme weather events are becoming more severe, which causes coastal flooding. The total economic loss for coastal flooding averages EUR 1.4 billion per year.
Pest outbreaks would become more frequent and severe, which would increase biomass loss and carbon release, according to the 2020 PESETA IV report.
Many of these risks will require more energy to be used to mitigate their effects, creating a vicious cycle. For example, more frequent and intense heatwaves (increased use of air conditioning and fans) with more greenhouse gases being emitted and worsening climate change in the long term. IPCC AR 6 WG II on “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerabilities” report emphasises the need to avoid maladaptation.
Europe is economically vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Extreme weather already costs the EU an average of EUR 12 billion per year. According to the 2020 PESETA IV report the effects of climate change in Europe, the wider global economic consequences of climate change will have additional international repercussions, which could increase the EU’s welfare loss by approximately a further 20 %. Urban areas have the highest economic losses in disasters due to their high populations and concentrations of homes, businesses, infrastructure, and cultural heritage sites.
The 2020 PESETA IV report and the 2022 IPCC AR6 report both indicate that urban areas are at higher risk of damages in heatwaves (especially if they lack green spaces that cool down city centres) and during floods (due to the higher usage of soil-sealing materials in urban infrastructure, which increases water runoff).
Flooding causes the most significant damage to infrastructure, but heatwaves can also disrupt critical infrastructure significantly, especially if drought and wildfires also occur. Europe’s 2019 heatwaves caused several nuclear power plants to temporarily close, and hydropower plants in France, Spain, the Balkans and Scandinavia were also affected.
In terms of EU policy framework that supports limiting global warming, action is being taken to prevent global warming from increasing to 1.5 °C. At international level, the Paris Agreement is a legally binding, worldwide treaty to limit global warming to below 2 °C (preferably 1.5 °C) compared to pre-industrial levels. The agreement also provides a framework of technical, financial, and capacity building support to participating countries in need.
At EU level, the European Green Deal adopted by the Commission in December 2019 set an agenda for policy and legislative initiatives that aim to make Europe the first carbon-neutral, climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable continent. The Green Deal proposed the first ever EU Climate Law that sets a legally binding EU’s climate objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
The 2018 Special IPCC Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), concludes that we are already experiencing the consequences of 1 °C of global warming as detailed in the risk drivers.
The 2022 Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability report reviews vulnerabilities and the capacities and limits of the natural world and human societies to adapt to climate change.
The EU strategy on adaptation to climate change aims to enhance the EU’s resilience to climate change and disaster risks, by making adaptation smarter and quicker, and to accelerate international action. To do this, the EU strategy enhances Climate-ADAPT, a partnership between the European Commission and the European Environment Agency, as a platform for sharing climate change data and enacting adaptation knowledge.
New EU strategies on biodiversity and forests will step up action to counter the loss of biodiversity, the degradation of ecosystems and help prevent disasters such as wildfires. To complement these policies, the European Climate Pact should mobilise broader public engagement on climate and environmental action throughout the EU. EU’s Farm to Fork strategy adopted in 2020 helps to accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems as current farming systems and the agricultural industry remain one of the key drivers of climate change and environmental degradation.
