Regional and Local Adaptation in the EU since the Adoption of the EU Adaptation Strategy in 2013
- Publication
- Citation
Lukat, Evelyn; Tröltzsch, Jenny; Cazzolo, Giacomo; Kiresiewa, Zoritza; Blobel, Daniel; Terenzi, Alberto; Peleikis, Julia; Latinos, Vasileios; Purdy, Ray; Hjerp, Peter (2016): Regional and Local Adaptation in the EU since the Adoption of the EU Adaptation Strategy in 2013. Funded by the Committee of the Regions, European Union.
The report analysed the impact of the EU Adaptation Strategy in 2013 on the development of national, regional and local adaptation strategies in the Member States. For the report, the authors of Ecologic Institute, ICLEI und UCL analysed national, regional and local adaptation policies. The analyses included interviews with two regional governments and a survey to signatories of the initiative MayorsAdapt. The report is available for download.
The process to adopt strategies and action plans for the adaptation to climate change received momentum when the EU Adaptation Strategy was adopted in 2013. Adaptation efforts also take place on regional and local level. Several regions were far advanced before adaptation strategies were adopted on national or EU level. In order to evaluate the impact on regional adaption efforts that the EU Adaptation Strategy had, the understanding of regional adaptation in the EU Strategy was analysed. It could be showed that actions on regional level differ from country to country. For example in Spain or Sweden, regions are well advanced in defining regional adaptation efforts. However, Finland or France do not have strong regional adaptation efforts. The adaptation actions are shaped by the general administrative system and significance of the regional level. Furthermore, the concrete responsibilities and processes for climate adaptation influence the activity of different administrative levels, e.g. in Denmark climate adaptation is mainly established at the regional level.
As surveys with local governments suggested, adaptation efforts taken on the local level increased vastly from 2012 to 2016. One of the reasons for the increase seems to be the focus that was given to the local level in the EU Adaptation Strategy. It provides solutions to many urgent requests formulated by local governments. Furthermore, a range of support tools, like Climate-ADAPT and the Urban Adaptation Support Tool, was created particularly supporting local governments to formulate adaptation needs and to design adaptation actions.
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