Editor’s choice
As the CASCADES project comes to an end, the European Union is still not prepared to manage cascading climate risks. Its final report “Cascading climate risks: strategic recommendations for European resilience“, compiles a set of 21 strategic recommendations for policy-makers to build climate resilience in Europe and beyond.
Direct climate change impacts such as increasing heatwaves, floods and wildfires pose a serious risk to European societies. Yet, ‘Cascading climate risks’ materialize when a climate impact travels through systems, across sectors and borders. This means shocks occurring in remote locations can severely disrupt societies and economies far away, including in Europe.
The EU’s only choice is whether to be reactive or proactive. A concerted and proactive response to cascading climate risks offers an opportunity for European policymakers to increase their systemic literacy and build risk and resilience thinking, leading to actions that benefit rather than undermine widespread and longer-term resilience.
Food affordability crisis in Europe, resulting from global food market inflation, triggered by drought-induced crop failure in a breadbasket region, compounded by conflict elsewhere in the world, which disrupts grain distribution.
Through cascading risks, climate impacts can escalate or diminish, compound and create feedback loops. There are limits to the predictability of cascades, but decision-makers can and must take steps to prepare for them.
European policymakers must respond skilfully to cascading climate risk in an increasingly turbulent geopolitical context. No continent is more open and connected to the rest of the world than Europe. This integration brings huge benefits, but also increased exposure to geopolitical shifts, economic shocks and cascading climate risks. It also brings great potential for leadership in an area of risk governance where international ties are both source and solution.
Diagram with three routes through which Europe is exposed: international trade, conflicts and finance.
Hildén, M. et al. (2020), Cascading climate impacts: a new factor in European policy-makingSource
The list below includes some recommendations extracted from the Summary for policymakers. The main report provides a full methodology through which recommendations were derived. Read the full recommendations and access CASCADES tools and resources at cascades.eu
Identifying the cascading risks the EU faces and perpetuates and those that are initiated withi its borders.
Establish risk ownership and to allocate resources and measure success.
Meet and exceed adaptation finance commitments combined with increased technical assistance and political engagement with partner countries. This means meeting existing climate finance and official development assistance (ODA) spending commitments.
Improving policy coherence to avoid harm and to harness synergies.
Iteratively cooperate, lead and build trust within the international system.
Formulate a trade resilience strategy for Europe.
Expand the scope of the Critical Entities Directive, support and facilitate supply chain ‘restructuring’ and improve risk data and disclosure.
Enhancing cooperation, communication and disclosure, and action to reform risk assessment and monitoring approaches. This, in turn, will incentivize investments in adaptation and shift the dial on which projects are considered ‘risky’.
Mobilize innovative European finance for widespread resilience.
The EU also needs to give climate security a home. This will help the Commission to build a cooperative approach to managing climate-related security challenges.
Combining direct investments with more just financial and trade flows, the EU can pull more forcefully in the direction of increasing resilience.
Provide technical support to member states in developing resilient local economies and communities.
Support member states to reduce social inequality and strengthen cohesion.
The project CASCADES was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. To learn more, visit cascades.eu
Project / CAScading Climate risks: towards ADaptive and resilient European Societies – an EU H2020 project assessing the interconnected impacts of climate change.
Feature / Researchers from the CASCADES project develop and test policy recommendations for the EU on trade, foreign policy and finance.
Perspective / Leadership and action on transboundary and cascading climate risks are urgently needed, and the latest analysis shows what this means to climate diplomacy.
Feature / SEI's Frida Lager explains how cascading climate risk affects Sweden and how that changes how Sweden should think around its adaptation strategy.
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