EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Brussels, 12.11.2018

SWD(2018) 461 final

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT

Evaluation of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change

Accompanying the document

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL

on the implementation of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change

{COM(2018) 738 final} - {SEC(2018) 472 final} - {SWD(2018) 460 final}

Table of contents

1.Introduction

Purpose and scope

2.Background to the intervention

Description of the intervention and its objectives

Need for action

Intervention logic

3.The Strategy, external policies and the international context for adaptation

Integration of adaptation in external policies

Development cooperation

Foreign and security policy (including migration)

Disaster risk reduction, including emergency response

The international context and the EU adaptation strategy

4.Baseline / Implementation / state of Play

Objective 1: Promoting action by Member States

Action 1 Member State strategies

Action 2 LIFE

Action 3 Covenant of Mayors

Objective 2: Better informed decision-making

Action 4 Knowledge gaps

Action 5 Climate-ADAPT

Objective 3: Promoting adaptation in key vulnerable sectors

Action 6 ESIF / CAP / CFP, including general mainstreaming

Action 7 Infrastructure

Action 8 Insurance and finance

5.Method

Methods for gathering evidence

Evaluation method

Limitations and robustness of the findings

6.Analysis and answers to the evaluation questions

6.1.Relevance

6.1.1.To what extent do the objectives and actions of the Strategy (still) respond to needs within the EU and at international level?

6.1.2.How relevant is the Strategy for the different stakeholders at local, regional, national and supra-national level?

6.2.Effectiveness

6.2.1.To what extent have the objectives been achieved during the period 2013-2018?

6.2.2.To what extent has each of the eight actions of the Strategy contributed to these achievements?

6.2.3.What drivers and barriers (expected or unexpected) contributed to or stood in the way of implementation of the EU Adaptation Strategy and how did they affect it?

6.2.4.What effects has the Strategy produced so far for different stakeholders, e.g. according to socio-economic background and vulnerability?

6.3.Efficiency

6.3.1.How adequate were the resources for the overall implementation of the EU Adaptation Strategy and how proportionate were those resources across its eight actions?

6.3.2.How do the different stakeholders view the monitoring of the implementation of the EU Adaptation Strategy? Which aspects are perceived as an unnecessary burden, if any, and to what extent?

6.4.Coherence

6.4.1.How well does the Adaptation Strategy fit together with other relevant EU legislation and policies, or similar initiatives at international, national or regional level? Are there any gaps or inconsistencies between policies? Are there components to be further developed or added to increase coherence of actions?

6.5.EU added value

6.5.1.What is the added value of addressing climate adaptation at EU level, in addition to the vertical and horizontal cooperation at national level?

7.Conclusions

Annex IProcedural information

Annex IIStakeholder consultation

1.Objectives of the consultation

2.Consultation activities and methodology

2.1.Activities

2.2.Stakeholder groups participating

2.3.Methodology

3.Results

3.1.Targeted Stakeholder Survey

3.2.Stakeholder interviews

3.3.Open Public Consultation

3.4.Stakeholder Workshops

4.Identified campaigns and ad-hoc contributions

5.Feedback from the roadmap

Annex IIIAcronyms

Annex IVList of SWDs supporting the Strategy Communication in 2013

Annex VIntervention logic of the EU’s Adaptation Strategy (reconstructed)

Annex VIOperational objectives and performance indicators in the 2013 impact assessment

Annex VIIInputs, activities and outputs related to the 8 actions of the Strategy

Annex VIIIComplementary information on the initiatives under the Strategy

1.LIFE

2.Covenant of Mayors

3.Monitoring and evaluation on adaptation action at EU and Member State level

4.Bridging the knowledge gaps

5.Climate-ADAPT

6.Key policy initiatives where adaptation was mainstreamed

7.Carbon Disclosure Project survey results on companies and climate risks

8.EU funds for climate resilience

9.Adaptation-related work in the European Standardisation Organisations

10.Insurance and financial services

11.Summary of costs related to the Strategy

12.Coherence with other EU policies

13.Coherence with international policies

Annex IXHorizontal assessment of the adaptation preparedness country fiches

Annex XEU adaptation preparedness scoreboard indicator list and methodology

Annex XIList of EU policy initiatives where adaptation is mainstreamed

Table XI-1. Initiatives where climate adaptation is mainstreamed into EU policy (in force), including updates

Table XI-2. COM legislative proposals currently with European Parliament and Council

Annex XIIAssessment of the quality of the evidence gathered in the evaluation support study

Annex XIIIEconomic costs of climate change

Annex XIVCase studies

Case Study 1Fire preparedness and the impact of climate change

Case Study 2Spillover effects from climate change impacts occurring outside the EU

Case Study 3The Danube macro-regional strategy and its contribution to action at Member State level

Case Study 4Adaptation of infrastructure in the energy sector

1.Introduction

Purpose and scope

This document sets out the results of the evaluation of the 2013 EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change (the Strategy). 1 The Strategy indicates that in 2017, the European Commission had to report to the European Parliament and the Council on the state of its implementation and propose its review, if needed. This evaluation intends to inform future work on the Strategy on the progress made, and to serve as background to the Report it accompanies.

It assesses whether the Strategy is fit for purpose, based on its performance up-to-date, to deliver on its 3 objectives and 8 actions in different policy sectors at local, national and transnational level. In accordance with the Better Regulation Guidelines 2 , the following evaluation criteria are used: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value.

It covers the period 2013 to mid-2018 3 and all EU Member States. The document is largely based on an external evaluation carried out by consultants 4 , complemented by internal assessments, recent evaluations (e.g. of the LIFE 5 and Covenant of Mayors 6 programmes and of the Climate-ADAPT platform 7 ), and a broad consultation process described in Annex II.

The evaluation focuses on the direct results of the Strategy (e.g. the extent to which adaptation has been mainstreamed into EU financing of projects) rather than on the activities triggered by those results (for instance the outputs of the financed projects).

2.Background to the intervention

Description of the intervention and its objectives

Need for action

In Europe, land temperatures in 2007-2016 were around 1.6°C warmer than in pre-industrial times. Particularly high warming has been observed since 1960 over the Iberian Peninsula, in mountain areas across central and northeastern Europe and over southern Scandinavia. The Pyrenees region is already 1.5ºC hotter than in 1960. Winter temperatures have increased the most in northern Europe, while higher summer temperatures have affected southern Europe 8 . In addition, there has already been a substantial increase in climate-related extreme events in recent years: the number of heatwaves, droughts, storms, wildfires has doubled, the number of floods has quadrupled since 1980. Climate change makes such events more likely. 9 There are also slower on-setting impacts like coastal erosion caused by sea level rise, or drought caused by changes to precipitation patterns. 10 Areas such as the EU Outermost Regions are particularly exposed to climate-related extreme events (e.g. cyclones, hurricanes, tropical tempests) and vulnerable to sea-level rise. Climate change impacts in third countries can also have spillover effects on Europe, for example by affecting trade routes and patterns and triggering climate-induced migration.

Adaptation is the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. It seeks to moderate or avoid harm and to exploit beneficial opportunities. Well planned, early adaptation action saves lives, livelihoods, biodiversity and money later. It focuses on building response capacity, prevention and on limiting the damage as it occurs, rather than on dealing with consequences (disaster relief). 11

At the time of the formulation of the Strategy, the economic, environmental and social costs of not adapting to climate change were estimated to range from EUR 100 billion a year in 2020 to EUR 250 billion a year in 2050 for the EU as a whole. 12 Recent studies confirm that the frequency and economic costs of extreme events are continuing to rise for specific sectors. 13  

Intervention logic

The general objective of the Strategy is to contribute to a more climate-resilient Europe by enhancing the preparedness and capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change at local, regional, national and EU levels, developing a coherent approach and improving coordination.

In order to achieve this, it set out the following three specific objectives:

Objective 1 – Promoting action by Member States: to promote adaptation action at sub-EU level, and support and facilitate exchange and coordination, including through cross-border measures.

Objective 2 - Better informed decision making: to further the understanding of adaptation, to improve and widen the knowledge base where knowledge gaps have been identified and to enhance dissemination of adaptation-related information.

Objective 3 - Climate-proofing EU action: promoting adaptation in key vulnerable sectors: to develop initiatives to consistently and comprehensively integrate climate change adaptation considerations into sectors at EU level through EU policies.

These objectives were intended to be delivered through the implementation of 8 actions as summarised in Table 2-1 (below). The table also lists the performance indicators foreseen in the 2013 impact assessment. 14

Table 21 Objectives, actions and performance indicators

The impact assessment also set out operational objectives in the form of aspirational targets for 2020, to be measured through the performance indicators. The Strategy itself did not reiterate those operational objectives. 19 The specific activities under each action are listed in the intervention logic graph in Annex V and detailed in Annex VII.

In terms of the expected impacts, the activities, performance indicators and operational objectives make it clear that the strategy’s core mechanism is a leveraging effect through multiplier actions under the different objectives. These actions range from promoting the adoption and implementation of strategies at all levels of governance to funding research and demonstration projects, setting infrastructure standards and mainstreaming into other policies (including funding programmes).

External factors that have emerged since 2013 and have had an influence on the Strategy’s impacts include the growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in recent years (that may be linked with global warming and which is likely to increase the costs of inaction, see section 6.1.1), and the adoption of several relevant international frameworks, in particular the Paris Agreement on climate change 20 which could affect the ambition level of EU adaptation policies in the future (see further discussion in Chapter 3).

The Strategy and its impact assessment were developed without prior intervention logic. Nevertheless, on their basis, the intervention logic in Annex V can be reconstructed to reflect the approach underlying the Strategy.

3.The Strategy, external policies and the international context for adaptation

Integration of adaptation in external policies

The Strategy focuses on the adaptation to the impacts of climate on the EU territory. 21 As such, it follows the approach adopted by most countries when developing national adaptation strategies. However, this also means that it does not make reference to any international policies or initiatives, nor does it emphasise the role of the EU’s external policies in supporting adaptation actions in non-EU countries.

The 2013 impact assessment considered that international issues were covered under the development and cooperation policy and through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. There was a concern that the adoption of an EU adaptation strategy setting objectives and actions relevant for discussions on adaptation in the international framework prior to the Paris Agreement would pre-empt the EU position in negotiations. Moreover, in order to push for higher mitigation ambition among Parties, the EU international climate policy was deliberately focused on mitigation, to the extent that even the EU’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) includes only mitigation.

The strategic choice of focusing the Strategy on domestic issues has not however reduced the importance that the EU attributes to international support for adaptation and resilience. On the contrary, the importance of mainstreaming adaptation in EU international policy has been increasingly recognized and much has been done with this purpose, in particular in the following key areas.

Development cooperation

Adaptation is recognized as one of the key cross-cutting issues in the 2017 EU's response to the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the European Consensus on Development 'Our world, our dignity, our future' 22 , which sets out the main principles for the approach of the EU and the Member States to cooperation with developing countries over the next 15 years, as well as a strategy for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals. Climate change resilience in vulnerable countries is considered as an important element of sustainability. Moreover, climate change adaptation has been integrated in the EU's development programmes, be it national, regional or thematic, at all stages of the planning and implementation process. In addition to dedicated projects and programmes, climate change is systematically addressed as a cross-cutting issue to identify and address the associated risks and opportunities. The most prominent example of EU support to policy dialogue and climate action in developing countries is the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA+) initiative. Lessons learnt in planning for and implementing the Strategy, including scientific knowledge and tools gained, provide input for these processes.

Foreign and security policy (including migration)

During the period covered by the evaluation, recognition of the link between climate change, EU external relations and security has increased. The 2016 Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy and the 2017 Joint Communication on Resilience mention climate change explicitly as a threat. Moreover, concrete steps have been taken to integrate and recognize climate change as a threat multiplier which, if not addressed, can contribute to a downward spiral of fragility and conflict. Concretely, climate change has been included amongst the 10 criteria used by the EU for assessment of early warning of conflict risk, in addition to water stress and food security. 23 For the prioritised countries, an in-depth conflict analysis is conducted which also considers climate change impacts.

Relevant to the security angle is also the progress made on recognizing and further analysing the link between climate change and human displacement, as demonstrated at the international level by the establishment of a Task Force on Displacement in the context of the UNFCCC. 24 Since 2013, EU policies on migration and external relations have increasingly taken into account climate-related disasters as potential triggers to displacement, and the increasing challenges posed by climate change in this context. Climate change adaptation is seen as an effective tool to tackle root causes of migration. Examples include: Council conclusion on Climate diplomacy in 2013 25 , 2016 26 and 2018 27 and the 2016 Communication on Forced Displacement and Development 28 . Better understanding, on the one hand, the role of climate change and environmental degradation as factors in decisions to migrate and, on the other hand, the potential role of migration as an adaptation option, continue to be a priority under the EU's external cooperation instruments for the period 2014-2020, both through dedicated thematic lines 29 and targeted projects to develop knowledge and practices to address climate induced migration.

Disaster risk reduction, including emergency response

As part of the post-2015 development agenda, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 30 was developed with a strong focus on risk prevention. To translate this framework into EU action, in July 2016 the Commission published an Action Plan 31 on the implementation of the Sendai Framework. Climate change adaptation and its links with disaster risk reduction are well integrated both in the Sendai framework and in the Action Plan.

An additional example include the New Urban Agenda 32 , adopted in Quito in 2016 which recognizes the contribution of cities to mitigating climate change, and commits to improve the resilience of cities to disasters and climate change – these objectives are well aligned with the core vision of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. Synergies between the Covenant of Mayors and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction's Making Cities Resilient campaign are also being sought to maximise the impact, including on monitoring, reporting and indicators.

All these achievements/developments are not a direct outcome of the Strategy: they were triggered by external developments which have leveraged the importance and urgency of adaptation and its close relation to sustainable development, disaster risk reduction, security etc. The main triggers are:

-The importance for the EU to show leadership in international climate policy and actions including by adequately responding to the increasing demands from developing countries (in political dialogues and within UNFCCC negotiations) to support climate change resilience as a component of sustainable development.

-The growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events affecting EU 's partners and the likely link with global warming have put the need to address climate change (both mitigation and adaptation) and its impacts higher on the EU political agenda.

-The Arctic's relevance in climate change adaptation and mitigation has increased, due to recent scientific evidence on accelerated Arctic sea ice melt and its consequences for extreme weather events elsewhere on the planet. The 2016 Joint Communication on an integrated EU policy for the Arctic recognised the relevance of the region for climate action. 33

-The adoption of other major international frameworks in 2015, and in particular the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Aichi targets 34 , and Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals 35 , as well as the New Urban Agenda in 2016.

On its side, the implementation of the Strategy has contributed to a strengthening of EU's external action on climate resilience by, for instance, improving the knowledge base, and offering a test-base for adaptation options and responses that could be relevant outside EU territories. 36

The international context and the EU adaptation strategy

The evaluation support study highlights that the context of international adaptation policy has changed: the initial assumptions on the basis of which the international setting was not included in the Strategy might not hold any more. The study points to a need to reflect on whether a clearer strategic framework is necessary to better enhance coherence and alignment between international policies, actions and processes of relevance to climate change adaptation. And in this context, whether the Strategy is the appropriate channel where this strategic framework should be included.

The following elements could bring useful insight in this direction:

-Already in 2010, the adoption of the Cancún adaptation framework foretold the importance that adaptation would gather in the future, with the adoption of the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement raises adaptation ambition, putting it on equal footing with mitigation in our collective response to climate change.The Paris Agreement moreover changes the narrative: climate change affects all countries and therefore adaptation needs to be a goal to which all Parties need to contribute. Specifically Art 7 of the Agreement asks Parties to engage on adaptation e.g. by developing plans/strategies, assessing vulnerabilities, monitoring adaptation policies and actions, sharing knowledge and lessons learnt, strengthening the scientific knowledge on climate etc. It also requires regular monitoring and revision of adaptation policies. Moreover the Paris Agreement includes adaptation in the 'ambition cycle', and in 2023: the EU, as a Party, will be asked to report on progress and actions on adaptation and eventually, if relevant, redefine ambition, by reviewing its strategies and policies. Our adaptation policy should ensure adequate alignment to this framework.

-Climate change worldwide will have consequences on the EU in the area of trade 37 (including food security), migration, and ecosystems, among others. Stakeholders expressed concern that the Strategy does not meet the EU’s needs with regard to climate change impacts beyond its borders. Our adaptation policy should consider how to prepare the EU for the effects of climate change in third countries and to some extent already does, via all the policies and measures mentioned above in the area of international adaptation.

The possible scope for alignment with international policy developments since 2013 would therefore merit to be examined, as well as the potential implications for the EU of transboundary effects of climate impacts in third countries via value chains, migratory flows, trade and financial flows, for instance.

Some further details on the above-mentioned international frameworks are provided in Annex VIII section 13.

4.Baseline / Implementation / state of Play 38

The Commission’s 2009 White Paper “Adapting to climate change: towards a European framework for action” 39 identified a number of possible areas for EU action and was already instrumental in triggering reaction in the Member States. For example, the number of countries with vulnerability assessments and national adaptation strategies (NAS) started to increase already before the 2013 Strategy. 40 The Strategy built on these dynamics, its objectives and actions covered all of the areas identified in the White Paper, except international policy as explained in Chapter 3.

Objective 1: Promoting action by Member States

Action 1 Member State strategies 41

Situation in 2013

15 Member States had adopted an adaptation strategy and/or plan. 42 The level of detail of these adaptation strategies or plans differed widely among Member States and there were important gaps. In particular:

·The funding of adaptation options remained vague in many cases;

·Only a third of Member States had assessed impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation options to support policy; and

·Only two Member States had made substantial progress in developing indicators and monitoring methodologies.

·Almost none of the adaptation strategies in place dealt with transboundary issues, or employment or social issues;

·

Of those Member States with no NAS at that time, most were in the process of developing one, whereas Southern and Central European countries were least advanced in the process.

Baseline

According to the Impact Assessment it was expected that without intervention, the adaptation strategies would continue varying in terms of scope (in particular on trans-boundary issues), level of ambition and agreed financing of adaptation measures. Barriers in human or financial resources to the adoption of further strategies would remain.

Implementation / State of play

The Strategy was endorsed by the Environment Council 43 who recognised the importance of NASs and called upon all Member States to shape their adaptation policies in the light of the guidelines of the Commission. Guidance for Member States on preparing NASs was published alongside the Strategy. 44 The guidance is integrated in the Climate-ADAPT adaptation tool. 45

In collaboration with the Member States, the Commission developed the proposed ‘adaptation preparedness scoreboard’ largely based on the process and approaches recommended in the guidance. 46 Using the scoreboard, the Commission prepared country fiches on each Member State in an iterative consultation process. 47 The country fiches assess the Member States’ adaptation policy, including the content of NASs and plans, for the following aspects:

§Institutional structure

§Quality of national vulnerability assessments

§Knowledge creation (national observation systems in relevant sectors 48 and climate modelling), transfer and use

§Action plans:

-Quality (incl. the basis used for assessment of adaptation options)

-Actual implementation mechanisms

§Funding mechanisms

§Mainstreaming into sectoral policies, in particular:

-Disaster risk reduction

-Spatial planning

-Environmental impact assessment (EIA) (how the Directive is transposed nationally)

-Insurance policy    

§Transboundary cooperation

§Monitoring mechanisms in different sectors and governance levels

The final versions of the fiches accompany this evaluation report in a separate Staff Working Document (SWD). 49  

The scoreboard’s assessment of the Member State’s adaptation preparedness is summarised in section 6.2.2 and is also the subject of a more detailed horizontal assessment in Annex IX.

Performance indicator: Number of NASs and action plans and national climate change risk assessments

25 of the 28 Member States had adopted NASs by early 2018. Strategies are being developed in the remaining three Member States (Latvia, Bulgaria and Croatia) but have not yet been adopted.

Action 2 LIFE

Situation in 2013

There was no LIFE sub-programme specifically allocated to climate action prior to the Strategy. However, between 2000 and 2015, EU support of EUR 152 million (EUR 307 million with co-financing) was provided to nearly 150 projects focusing fully or partly on climate change adaptation, including to the development of Cyprus’ and Malta’s NASs and some cross-border projects. 50  

Baseline

Without intervention in the form of a further reinforced adaptation component in the LIFE programme, it was expected that many authorities would find it difficult to find the necessary financial resources to develop adaptation strategies, organise cross-border cooperation and identify best practice across the EU.

Implementation / State of play 51

The budget under the LIFE Regulation 2014-2020 and the Multiannual Work Programme 2014-2017 is split between the Environment and Climate Action sub-programmes. The Regulation foresees that 25% (i.e. EUR 864 million) of the LIFE budget would be assigned to Climate Action, with a fairly even split between adaptation and mitigation. Since 2014, four calls for proposals were launched (2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017) and the projects from the last call started in the summer of 2018. 

Performance indicator: Number and amount of LIFE grants used for experience transfer and lighthouse projects 52 respectively

As per the 2014 LIFE regulation, all LIFE grant projects involve experience transfer and replication and are classified either as pilot, demonstration, best-practice or integrated projects, which were considered the criteria for lighthouse projects.

As of April 2018, there are at least 60 ongoing adaptation-related LIFE projects worth €184 million in project cost. This includes two integrated projects in Denmark and Spain 53 that operate in a wider geographical area and serve a broader range of purposes, including adaptation. Beneficiaries estimate that 3-5 years after their completion the adaptation-related projects from 2014-2016 will impact through replication and transfer an area of 1.8 million km2, equivalent to one fourth of the EU territory. 54 LIFE projects also help other actions of the Strategy, such as urban adaptation.

In addition, under LIFE, the European Investment Bank (EIB) operates an innovative financial instrument, the Natural Capital Financing Facility (NCFF), providing loan or equity financing and technical assistance to natural capital projects. These NCFF projects aim to generate revenues or save costs while delivering on biodiversity and climate adaptation objectives. For this, the Commission provides financial guarantees in the amount of €50 million and technical support for projects in the amount of €10 million. The NCFF €125 million financing (of which almost half is already committed to two adaptation-related projects) is expected to generate an additional €400 million of public and private investment by 2021. 55

More details on adaptation in the LIFE programme are provided in section 1 of Annex VIII.

Action 3 Covenant of Mayors

Situation in 2013

Around a quarter (24%) of 100 surveyed cities in 2012 reported they had already adopted an adaptation strategy, 56 while under half believed they were still in the very early stages of work on adaptation. Cities within several Member States had formed their own networks, as a result of either national or international initiatives, but no EU-level network existed for adaptation.

Baseline

It was expected that without additional actions, regional and local adaptation strategies would continue to develop as previously. Barriers related to legal competence, and human or financial resources to the adoption of further strategies would remain.

Implementation / State of play

Performance indicator: Number of cities pledging to develop an adaptation strategy and of cities with more than 150 000 inhabitants in vulnerable areas with an adaptation strategy.

Mayors Adapt (the Covenant of Mayors Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change) 57 was launched by the Commission in March 2014 and merged into the Covenant of Mayors initiative in 2015, introducing an integrated approach on mitigation and adaptation.

Signatories to the Covenant voluntarily commit to develop a climate vulnerability and risk assessment and an action plan for targeted adaptation options, including reporting every two years, within two years of signing up to the initiative. The Covenant office (implemented and funded by the Commission) informs, mobilises and supports local authorities, in cooperation with the Commission’s JRC who prepare guidelines for the local authorities’ actions. The Commission also ensures that the relevant EU funds and financial instruments can support the Covenant signatories in their actions.

By 30 April 2018, 1076 Covenant signatories from 25 EU Member States, covering around 60 million inhabitants, had committed to conduct vulnerability and risk assessments, and develop, implement and report on adaptation plans.

According to recent surveys, it is estimated that about 26% of all EU cities (both Covenant cities and non-Covenant) and 40% of EU cities of more than 150.000 inhabitants 58 have already adopted adaptation plans. 59 In general, cities in Eastern and Southern Europe have fewer local adaptation plans, whereas Central and Northern European cities often have such plans. 60  

Building on the success of the Covenant, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy 61 was launched in 2017 bringing together the Compact of Mayors 62 and the Covenant of Mayors in a worldwide campaign.

More details on the Covenant of Mayors are provided in section 2 of Annex VIII.

Objective 2: Better informed decision-making

Action 4 Knowledge gaps

Situation in 2013

In spite of progress achieved through national, EU and global research in addressing relevant knowledge gaps, the following gaps persisted 63 :

1.Information on projected costs and benefits of impacts and adaptation

2.Regional and local-level analyses and risk assessments

3.Frameworks, models and tools to support decision making under uncertainty 64 and to assess the effectiveness of adaptation measures

4.Monitoring and evaluation of past adaptation efforts

Baseline

Without coordinated research efforts among EU and national institutions, overlaps in research projects and knowledge gaps would not be addressed, resulting in an inefficient use of public funding for research.

Implementation / State of play

Performance indicator: List of knowledge gaps now, in 2017, and in 2020, plus number of H2020 and JRC research projects dealing with adaptation and associated budget allocated.

Regarding the indicator “List of knowledge gaps now, in 2017, and in 2020”, since the knowledge gaps were formulated in an open-ended way (rather than as focused or sector-specific questions), it is difficult to assess if they have been closed. Nevertheless, evidence indicates that despite a substantial increase in the knowledge base, none of the priority knowledge gaps have been fully closed, and new gaps have emerged in sectors such as ecosystem-based adaptation, relationship to sustainable development goals, global transboundary (spillover) effects of climate change impacts and risks, adapting infrastructure and mountainous areas, long-term lack of water resources, high-end climate change, health, coastal areas, biodiversity. Regarding the indicator ‘Number of Horizon 2020 and JRC research projects dealing with adaptation and associated budget allocated’, in total 124 research projects, reports and articles were identified on adaptation under Framework Programme 7 (FP7) and H2020 as well as originating from JRC, European Environment Agency (EEA), service contracts of the Commission and other EU sources, involving a total budget of EUR 285 million. The most frequently addressed topics were water, nature, and agriculture.

More details on bridging the knowledge gaps are provided in section 4 of Annex VIII.

Action 5 Climate-ADAPT

Situation in 2013

Prior to the Strategy, Climate-ADAPT was already launched in March 2012 as a web portal in common ownership of the Commission and the EEA with the objectives to build a consistent and updated knowledge base, in particular:

-To facilitate the collection, sharing and use of information on climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in the EU;

-to assist an effective uptake of the relevant knowledge by decision-makers; and

-to contribute to a greater level of coordination among sectors and institutional levels.

At the time of the launch, the various other relevant EU services and platforms, such as the Copernicus Climate Change Service 65 or the Disaster Risk Knowledge Management Centre 66 did not yet exist. While Climate-ADAPT experienced a high volume of users immediately after its launch in 2012, as compared with other EEA products, users needed more encouragement to make use of it, to upload relevant information and to collect data and information from local and regional levels, including private sector initiatives. National adaptation portals existed in six Member States 67 and more limited adaptation portals in eight others, but the information transfer between national and local levels was not optimal. The Strategy noted the need to improve access to information and develop interaction between Climate-ADAPT and other relevant platforms, including national and local adaptation portals.

Baseline

Funding for Climate-ADAPT was expected to continue regardless of the Strategy, but it was not expected that the portal’s coverage gaps on local or regional issues would be addressed without intervention. There would also be additional costs of quality control of reporting of adaptation-related findings from EU-funded research projects. It was expected that mainstreaming of adaptation in sectoral science-policy interfaces 68 would remain limited, affecting the accessibility of adaptation research to decision makers, particularly in those sectors where no science-policy interface was identified, such as energy or transport.

Implementation / State of play

Performance indicator: Number of visitors to Climate-ADAPT, pages most visited, number of registered users, assessment of the content, databases and metadata + Number of conferences, workshops, adaptation events registered in Climate-ADAPT

Climate-ADAPT had 409 565 visitors between 1 March 2013 and 31 March 2018, the most visited pages being the database, the adaptation support tools, the case studies, EU policy pages and the country pages. The number of registered users (recipients of the newsletter) amounted to about 5 000 in April 2018. The core of Climate-ADAPT are its knowledge database and webpages, which currently comprise of about 2 400 items in total. A detailed assessment of the content, databases and metadata is provided in the EEA mid-term evaluation report on Climate-ADAPT. 69 The total number of conferences, workshops and adaptation events registered was 107 between 29 April 2014 and 31 March 2018.

More details on Climate-ADAPT are provided in section 5 of Annex VIII.

Objective 3: Promoting adaptation in key vulnerable sectors

Action 6 ESIF / CAP / CFP, including general mainstreaming

Situation in 2013

Adaptation had been mainstreamed into a broad range of sectors listed in the introduction to Objective 3 in the Strategy (with legislation and policy documents adopted or Commission proposals tabled by 2013). 70 Some policy initiatives in the pipeline were also listed for imminent mainstreaming. 71 However, adaptation had yet to be mainstreamed into social and education policies, tourism, fisheries, insurance and trade, while further work was deemed necessary in energy, transport, the EU’s outermost regions, disaster risk reduction, health and in particular funding programmes under the 2014-20 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

Baseline

Without the Strategy, mainstreaming activities would continue on an ad hoc basis with no adequate prioritisation.

Implementation / State of play

Performance indicator: List of policies and legal acts where adaptation has been mainstreamed

In terms of the general mainstreaming under Objective 3, it is clear that significant progress has been made in increasing awareness and explicit consideration of adaptation issues where foreseen in the Strategy, while falling short of adaptation mainstreaming that would be fully “consistent and comprehensive”. In section 6 of Annex VIII, more details are given on the degree of mainstreaming in the following key sectors:

·Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

·Outermost Regions

·Common Agriculture Policy (CAP)

·Water policy

·Urban policy

·Energy Union

Although not within the scope of the Strategy, adaptation is actively mainstreamed also in some areas of the EU’s international policy (see Chapter 3).

A full list of policy initiatives where adaptation is mainstreamed or where the Commission has made a legal proposal for mainstreaming is provided in Annex XI. The list includes information on all those initiatives that were mentioned in the introduction to the Strategy’s Objective 3 “Increasing the resilience of key vulnerable sectors”.

Performance indicator: Adaptation activities by private organisations as reported in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) 72 surveys

In spite of the fact that the 2013 impact assessment included this performance indicator in the monitoring framework of the Strategy, none of its actions targeted the adaptation activities of private organisations in general.

The CDP surveys filled in by companies in the period covered by the evaluation did not include reporting concretely about climate adaptation activities. 73 Still, the surveys allowed measuring the extent to which companies regard climate change as a risk to their business (84 to 91% do), and at least in some sectors, they also hint at what kind of risk reduction measures they have applied (supplier diversification and engagement 41%, infrastructure and technological investment 26%).

More detailed results from CDP surveys are presented in section 7 of Annex VIII.

Mainstreaming into the EU funds

The Strategy devoted its Action 6 entirely to mainstreaming in the areas of EU funds (ESIF which include the following five funds: European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Cohesion Fund (CF), European Social Fund (ESF), European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), and related policies such as cohesion policy, CAP and CFP), although no specific performance indicator or operational objective was linked to this action. The following advancements were made in the period covered by the evaluation:

1.Legal provisions on climate change were included in the framework governing the ESIF funds, the Common Provisions Regulation (CPR) 74 , notably:

a.A 20% EU mainstreaming objective for climate mitigation and adaptation, 20% earmarking of funding for low-carbon economy (TO4)

b.Horizontal provision for mainstreaming sustainable development, including climate change adaptation in all programmes and investments

c.A thematic objective (TO5) on “climate change adaptation, risk prevention and management”

d.An ex-ante conditionality which fixed the existence of national/regional risk assessments (also of climate risks) as a pre-condition to funding under TO5, taking into account also the NAS where available

e.detailed climate tracking methodology and common output indicators

f.The requirement to assess and address the climate change adaptation needs and disaster resilience of major projects. 75

Of the points above, only paragraph b) was applied in the case of the European Social Fund. It has to be recalled that the funds are under shared management between the Commission and the Member States, so the implementation of the these provisions relies largely on national action.

2.Three guidance documents were published alongside the Strategy to help Member States authorities to consider climate adaptation effectively within the programming cycles of ESIF, CAP and CFP.  76

3.Several guiding factsheets were produced on mainstreaming both mitigation and adaptation, listing also a set of possible adaptation actions with examples. 77

4.The Commission provided extensive climate-related comments on all of the ESIF Partnership Agreements and most of the fund-specific programmes. In the implementation phase, it only approved major projects (those that receive more than € 50 or 75 million EU support) that were climate-proofed.

In terms of direct funding, a recent study 78 provides an overall estimate of all ESIF allocations to climate adaptation at EUR 62.1 billion. It estimates that allocations to TO5 (“Promoting climate change adaptation, risk prevention and management”) are EUR 6.3 billion and EUR 1.1 billion from the ERDF / CF and the EAFRD, respectively. It also estimates that allocations to adaptation actions through other Thematic Objectives amount to EUR 4.9 billion for the ERDF and the CF and EUR 49.8 billion for the EAFRD. However, given the nature of ESIF, there is also a significant time lag effect in this policy area, so that results and impacts cannot be fully assessed yet. Besides, the eventually realised amounts will depend on the implementation of climate action during the period 2014-2020. From the amendment of various programmes, the general impression is that the climate related expenditure including for adaptation will increase compared to the outset (i.e. at the end of the programming process in the beginning of the period 2014-2020).

Beyond the direct funding there are a number of advancement in terms of horizontal mainstreaming, such as climate-proofing of major projects and increased used of green infrastructure solutions (as opposed to grey infrastructures) across different thematic areas.

Detailed observations about the status of mainstreaming adaptation into the funds are presented in section 8 of Annex VIII.

Action 7 Infrastructure

Situation in 2013

There was no substantive requirement across sectors to consider climate risks in the analysis of the vulnerabilities and costs/benefits of projects, and in their technical characteristics, in particular due to a lack of a common methodology. Work on design standards was uneven because of the resources required to incorporate consideration of climate change adaptation in the thousands of design-standards potentially affected.

Baseline

It was expected that without further EU action, only vague consideration would be given to climate change by new infrastructural investments. Many small and medium-sized enterprises would be unable to implement necessary adaptation measures and become increasingly vulnerable to the effects of unavoidable climate change.

Implementation / State of play

Performance indicator: Amount of adaptation infrastructure investments (co-)financed by EU funds and/or public financial institutions

The key expenditure programmes funding adaptation infrastructure are the ERDF and CF. 79 Budget allocations (compared with total budget) to Thematic Objective 5 (Promoting climate change adaptation, risk prevention and management) are detailed in the table below. 80

There are 548 major projects currently foreseen of which 178 have been approved. The eligible cost of the 178 approved projects is EUR 29.6 billion, which points towards a total eligible cost of the 548 major projects of about EUR 90-95 billion. The EU contribution for the 178 approved projects is EUR 20 billion, which points towards a total contribution for the 548 major projects of about EUR 60-65 billion. The major projects are subject to climate proofing.

However, it should be noted that some relevant climate adaptation infrastructure may be funded under other Thematic Objectives, particularly TO4 (Low-carbon economy), TO6 (Preserving and protecting the environment and promoting resource efficiency) and TO7 (Promoting sustainable transport). The legal basis does not provide a tracking methodology distinguishing between mitigation and adaptation spending under these TOs. Equally, not all investments recorded under TO5 will be relevant to climate adaptation.

As to adaptation infrastructure financed by public financial institutions, the EIB reports that in 2017, out of total climate action finance of EUR 19.4 billion, EUR 0.8 billion was spent on climate adaptation, an amount slightly inferior to two years before (EUR 20.7 billion and EUR 0.8 billion, respectively). The EIB also reports that a total of EUR 4.5 billion was spent on adaptation over the five years 2011-2015, suggesting a steady level of financing.

Performance indicator: progress on the mapping exercise by CEN-CENELEC (Comité Européen de Normalisation and Comité Européen de Normalisation en Electronique et en Electrotechnique)

On a mandate from the Commission, the ESOs compiled a list of 12 industry standards to be revised and 1 standard to be written in order to ensure that new major infrastructure projects are climate resilient. They also adopted a 'Guide for addressing climate change adaptation in standards'. 81  

More information on the work of the ESOs is available in section 9 of Annex VIII.

Other relevant initiatives

The EIA Directive was updated in 2014 82 to include vulnerability to climate change among the aspects to be considered in project impact assessments, where relevant. As mentioned above under Action 6, the CPR also requires that climate change adaptation needs and disaster resilience of the funded projects are assessed and the projects are climate-proofed. Mandatory sectoral guidelines were adopted in 2013 for Trans-European Networks for Energy and Transport (TEN-E / TEN-T), with several provisions aiming at climate-proofing. 83

8 European financing institutions, including the Commission, the EIB and the European Bank for Reconstitution and Development (EBRD), have created a Working Group on Adaptation to Climate Change (EUFIWACC). 84 They published a guide in 2016 designed to help practitioners assess climate change risks and vulnerabilities and better integrate adaptation measures into project planning, design and implementation. 85   The Commission also published or updated several other EU guidance documents for planning infrastructure projects to include consideration of climate risk in the planning phase, including in cost-benefit analysis. 86

Action 7 of the Strategy announces guidance on the mobilisation of ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation of infrastructure. A fact sheet was published in 2016 in the context of the implementation of the Green Infrastructure Strategy 87 , discussing costs and benefits of green infrastructure in relation to adaptation and presenting good practice examples. 88 Further, work on voluntary guidelines for the design and implementation of ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction is ongoing at international level.

Action 8 Insurance and finance

While significant effort is placed at the national and European level on preventing damage caused by weather and climate related disasters, for example through adaptation strategies, climate proofing of investments, national risk assessments and other disaster and climate risk policies, not all risks can be averted. This residual risk affects all areas of society and can be addressed in different ways, through self-insurance, public aid, voluntary insurance schemes or mandatory insurance required by law. 89 Insurance policies raise awareness of climate risks and may also provide the right incentive to invest into preventive action.

Situation in 2013

Disaster risk insurance had a low market penetration rate, which negatively affected not only the insurance sector but also the economic value of the insured and non-insured assets that remained vulnerable.

Insurance aimed towards natural and manmade disasters was addressed by the Commission in a Green Paper 90 published alongside the Strategy. The aim of the paper was to raise awareness and to assess whether action at EU level could be appropriate to improve the market for disaster insurance in the EU.

Baseline

It was assumed that without further policy intervention, the market penetration rate of disaster risk insurance in Member States would remain low. A JRC Technical Report 91 that was published before the launch of the Strategy indicates that for floods only a fifth of the Member States had high insurance penetration rates, and almost half of the Member States had a low to medium insurance penetration rate.

Implementation / State of play

There was no associated performance indicator in the 2013 impact assessment against which progress could be measured. From the Strategy itself, it can be inferred that progress was to be achieved by:

1)Encouraging insurers to support climate risk reduction and climate risk management measures;

2)Improving the market penetration of natural disaster insurance;

3)Using insurance pricing and other financial products

I)for risk-awareness, prevention and risk mitigation;

II)for long-term resilience in investment and business decisions.

Insurance

The Commission completed a study in 2017 on the insurance of weather and climate related disaster risk. 92 The study has increased the knowledge of insurance as a tool in adaptation and disaster risk reduction, by mapping the national insurance markets in 12 Member States.

Observed trends

According to this study, currently, risk transfer does not constitute an integral part of adaptation approaches in many Member States, in spite of the fact that the insurance industry’s risk pricing can allow efficient scoping in terms of where risk reduction is required. Member States apply diverse systems of insurance, which represents a challenge to an increased market-penetration of risk transfer mechanisms across Europe.

Two studies commissioned by the EU 93 looked into insurance as a risk management tool in agriculture. The studies recommend the integration and further support to risk management instruments in the framework of the agricultural policy, to strengthen capacity to implement, manage and control such instruments, and to better link vulnerability, funding and insurance as a risk management tool.

With regard to DRR and adaptation to climate change, the EU Action Plan on the Sendai Framework includes actions on insurance, which foresee, inter alia, to follow up to the Green Paper on the insurance of natural and man-made disasters, published together with the EU Adaptation Strategy. 94  

There were some concrete activities in relation to insurance and climate adaptation, notably an expert group 95 was created to consider how to collect better data on losses, as it is easier to convince people to take adaptation actions when shown that this can reduce losses.

Other financial products and services

Insurance companies are important institutional investors into climate resilient infrastructure.

The Capital Markets Union (CMU) 96 aims to enable new forms of funding including for infrastructure, by bridging the information gap between investors and businesses and ensuring the flow of private capital to sustainable projects.

Through amendments to delegated acts under the Solvency II Directive 97 in 2015 and 2017, the Commission facilitated the risk-based investments of insurance companies into infrastructure projects. In March 2018, the Commission’s action plan on financing sustainable growth 98 announced EU legislation 99 on a classification system for sustainable 100 economic activities, on the labelling of green financial products, on investors’ and asset managers’ duties on sustainability and transparency on risks, and on insurer’s duties to take into account their clients’ sustainability preferences when advising them. Institutional risk management policies and banks’ capital requirements would also have to consider climate risks.

Insurance and financial markets are also addressed in the adaptation preparedness scoreboard described under Action 1 above, where an indicator checks whether “adaptation is mainstreamed in insurance or alternative policy instruments, where relevant, to provide incentives for investments in risk prevention”.

More information on the role of insurance and financial services is available in section 10 of Annex VIII.

5.Method

The evaluation of the Strategy was based on ten evaluation questions linked to the five criteria defined by the Better Regulation Guidelines. These questions were broken down into sub-questions and developed as operational questions appropriate for stakeholder responses. An evaluation matrix describing this process is included in Appendix 4 of the evaluation support study. In addition, the analysis of the criteria built on the intervention logic represented graphically in Annex V.

The external support study collected data and provided an analysis of the evidence from the consultation activities and the literature.

Methods for gathering evidence

Evidence for the evaluation support study was gathered through a wide combination of data sources: a literature review 101 , a targeted survey and an open public consultation 102 , interviews, workshops 103 and 4 case studies. A summary of methods used for gathering evidence is provided in Appendix 3 of the evaluation support study and a synopsis of the consultation activities can be found in Annex II. The original plan for the consultation activities were described in the stakeholder consultation strategy 104 ; the plan was generally followed, except for some changes in the timeline.

In drafting this document, the Commission services also relied on internal data collection and on the Member States' adaptation preparedness scoreboard foreseen in the Strategy, including a horizontal assessment of Member States adaptation strategies.

Evaluation method

A significant amount of information was gathered through the consultation activities. This information was triangulated i.e. cross-checked against other evidence, and analysed to provide for as solid as possible results.

These results and subsequent recommendations, contained in the draft external report, were presented to stakeholders in the context of the Open Public Consultation and during the 2nd stakeholder workshop. This "reality-check" provided additional robustness to the final results of the evaluation.

The Impact Assessment identified the situation in 2013 before the Strategy was launched. It also identified planned inputs, outputs and activities, expected results and operational objectives. It did not quantify in terms of the performance indicators what the future position would be in the absence of the Strategy, and therefore it did not prepare the ground for a quantitative counterfactual analysis. Furthermore, the impacts of the Strategy are expected to arise as a result of voluntary actions being taken by multiple actors. In this context, the evaluation had to rely as much as possible on measuring the progress in the indicators foreseen in the Impact Assessment. Thus, the method used to address the evaluation questions is a theory-based approach, comparing the current state of play to points of comparison derived from the expected results and operational objectives of the Impact Assessment. There is no possible comparison with what would have been the situation in the absence of the Strategy.

It should also be noted that the analysis has used both qualitative and quantitative data to determine the progress of the different indicators and the impact of certain actions considered in the evaluation.

Limitations and robustness of the findings

The main limitation of the evaluation was the lack of a quantified counter-factual scenario, i.e. what would have happened in the absence of the Strategy. The Impact Assessment included some statements on the expected future situation if the Strategy had not been adopted. However, due to the nature of adaptation policies, and notably the fact that measures are mostly taken at local or regional level, it would not be possible to present a robust quantitative counterfactual scenario that would only reflect the absence of EU action..

Attempts were made to develop an ad hoc counterfactual for the evaluation, but they did not provide a solid comparison tool. This is due to the broad scope of the evaluation (8 diverse and wide-ranging actions), the large amount of factors affecting implementation, the voluntary nature of the commitments under the Strategy and the lack of extensive data sets on policy outcomes.

However, the lack of counterfactual did not prevent the evaluation to be robust in its analysis and findings. The evaluation was underpinned by a large number and variety of evidence gathering methods, which provide a solid basis for drawing conclusions. The number of individual views collected on specific issues was sometimes low, because adaptation is a relatively new and marginal topic in many areas, so there are a limited number of experts in the field able to formulate opinions on technical and specialist questions. Still, the quality of the evidence collected during the evaluation support study can be considered mostly as medium to high, with some variance across the different evidence-gathering actions. 105

Moreover, the original objectives of the Strategy focused on setting processes and procedures, while the evolving context and progress in climate adaptation strategies point to the need for effective implementation and quality adaptation strategies resulting in effective impacts on society and economy. The Strategy did not include appropriate performance indicators to measure its effectiveness in terms of societal and economic impacts and no such indicators exist currently at EU scale. This limitation has hampered the measurement of the overall impact of the Strategy’s effects, including on the different stakeholders. The evaluation did not develop ad hoc indicators since they require long-term collection of data. The EEA and also the Commission in the context of the new Multiannual Financial Framework have started some preparatory work on indicators that could be useful input to future monitoring of adaptation action (more information in section 3 of Annex VIII).

6.Analysis and answers to the evaluation questions

6.1.Relevance

6.1.1.To what extent do the objectives and actions of the Strategy (still) respond to needs within the EU and at international level?

Since the adoption of the Strategy, evidence has continued to accrue that climate-related extremes are more frequent and intense in Europe: the total reported economic losses caused by climate-related extremes in Europe during the 1980–2015 period amounted to over €433 billion 106 . Inaction would result in large economic costs, even under conservative climate change scenarios. These and other cost estimates are detailed in Annex XIII.

Projections of impacts of climate change in Europe can vary widely, depending on the level of warming as well as socio-economic conditions that define exposure and vulnerability of our future societies. For example, in the absence of further investments in coastal adaptation, the present expected annual losses of 1.25 billion EUR due to coastal flooding is projected to increase by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude by the end of the century, ranging between 93 and 961 billion EUR depending on the socio-economic pathway. 107 Unfortunately, comparisons across sectors and between estimates before the strategy and today are difficult as parallel studies are currently taking place with different assumptions, scopes and timelines, and some of them are only at its initial stages.

Impacts to society from global warming will be largely connected to changes in extreme climate events due to their disproportionate rise compared to the corresponding change in climatological averages. Therefore, the Strategy’s objective to increase the EU’s climate resilience is more important than ever in order to limit the costs of unavoidable and projected climate change.

Already the current level of climate change makes it necessary to adapt. While the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal is to keep global warming well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C, this is not matched by current commitments of the Parties (consistent with around 3°C). It is difficult to say what the 'dangerous' level of global warming may be for each region as warming is not uniform globally and impacts can vary strongly between regions. For instance, Europe generally experiences higher warming than the global average, i.e. it will experience more than 2°C of warming even if the 2°C goal is achieved. Warming over all European regions will occur, with slightly weaker warming over North-Western Europe but a more intense warming (up to +3°C) in Northern and Eastern Europe in winter and in Southern Europe in summer 108 .

As discussed in Chapter 3, the Strategy’s relevance progressed since 2013 also as a result of new international policy developments that recognise the increased importance of adaptation at EU and global level. For instance, the Paris Agreement includes adaptation in its 'ambition cycle': in 2023 the parties will be asked to report on progress and actions on adaptation and eventually, if relevant, redefine ambition, by reviewing their strategies and policies.

The relevance of the strategy is also affected by the consequences on the EU of climate change in third countries through trade, migration, food security, ecosystems etc.

Relevance by action

Action 1 Member State strategies: Three Member States have not yet adopted adaptation strategies, and the scoreboard analysis shows that those Member States who have adopted one are mostly lagging behind on implementation and monitoring. Stakeholders agree there is a need for continued stimulus to keep the topic high on the agenda and ensure proper implementation of the national strategies.

Action 2 LIFE: In the public consultation that supported the LIFE mid-term evaluation, 96% of respondents agreed that there is a need for a specific European programme for the environment and climate action financed at EU level. 109 In its response to the mid-term evaluation, the European Committee of the Regions recommended maintaining and strengthening LIFE’s sub-programme on climate action in the 2nd LIFE Multiannual Work Programme and post-2020. 110  

Action 3 Covenant of Mayors: there is a continuing need for adaptation action to be taken at sub-national and local level, also in light of recent evidence that the impacts of climate change are already being felt across cities and urban areas in Europe. As population and infrastructure are concentrated, extreme weather tends to cause more damage in urban areas, which makes cities more vulnerable to climate change impacts. Unless action is taken soon, according to some estimates the economic costs from extreme weather events to EU cities could reach over EUR 190 billion annually by 2070. 111 The stakeholder survey and interviews identified a continuing need for support for knowledge sharing and capacity building (e.g. conferences and workshops, online platforms, guidelines), as well as financial support for adaptation actions. Some stakeholders argue that other forms of support should also be put at work to help local adaptation, such as to assess impacts and vulnerability, or to establish communities of practice.

Action 4 Knowledge gaps: As outlined in Chapter 4 and Chapter 6.2 under the effectiveness criterion, progress has been made in addressing the knowledge gaps identified in the Strategy but some key gaps remain, and new gaps have appeared, so the action remains relevant.

Action 5 Climate-ADAPT: Web statistics confirm that the number of users of Climate-ADAPT have increased ever since the start of monitoring in March 2013, which is in itself a sign of the platform’s relevance. Several interviewees indicated that Climate-ADAPT is the place where people start looking for information, distinguishing itself from other such platforms by providing a broad overview of the state of play in a comparative and structured way. The Climate-ADAPT draft evaluation report 112 finds that the website succeeds in collecting and sharing relevant information in Europe by involving a wide range of information providers, citing the case studies presented in the platform as particularly relevant tools.

Action 6 ESIF / CAP / CFP, including general mainstreaming. There is a strong consensus among stakeholders that there continues to be a need to climate-proof investments supported by EU funds, research and innovation, and key vulnerable sectors such as coastal protection, energy infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, spatial planning, transport and communication, urban development, public health and water. It is also necessary to ensure strengthening synergies and coherence with policies that share similar objectives, like disaster risk reduction/civil protection. There is a constantly renewed need to mainstream adaptation across the policy spectrum, as it is primarily a cross-sectoral matter and as such which needs to be present both in emerging new policies and in the ones that are periodically revised or are cyclical by nature.

Action 7 Infrastructure: The EEA’s latest assessment of climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 113 highlights the vulnerability of construction and buildings, as well as energy and transport infrastructure to extreme events due to high temperatures, increased precipitation, sea-level rise, floods, wind and storms. This is underpinned by a 2015 JRC study 114 which assessed the climate risks to critical infrastructure 115 (industry, energy, transport, social, environment, tourism, and Information and Communication Technology infrastructure) in the EU, with current sectoral damages of EUR 3.4 billion per year projected to triple by the 2020s, multiply six-fold by mid-century, and rise to EUR 38 billion per year by the 2080s. Southern and south-eastern European countries will suffer the greatest impact. The study shows that benefits (or avoided damage) of climate-proofing critical infrastructure outweigh the costs. This all points to the continued relevance of adapting infrastructure, a conclusion on which there is consensus also among stakeholders. One of the case studies developed on the adaptation of energy infrastructure (see Case Study 4 in Annex XIV) reveals how both public and private stakeholders begin to think long-term and apply effective adaptation measures such as underground cabling.

Action 8 Insurance and finance: Most survey respondents considered that the market of insurance and other financial products for resilient investments is still under-developed, while such products are closely related to disaster risk reduction. Of weather and climate related losses in Europe from 2011-16, only 42% were insured. 116 The approach to disaster insurance, which is also a means to involve the private sector in adaptation, is very different in each EU country. Insurance companies have been reluctant to feed damage information into disaster risk models for use in public private cooperation 117 , as gathering this data requires resources and expertise, and the quality and level of detail of these data provide a stronger basis for insurance companies in optimising their business model. A third party could play an enabling role in matching the knowledge that is needed for the design of preventive measures with available loss data. The sector would thus benefit from facilitative action at the EU level.

6.1.2.How relevant is the Strategy for the different stakeholders at local, regional, national and supra-national level?

The consequences of climate change will significantly affect a wide range of the population both in number and in type, so preventive action is of general relevance, as it is perceived by stakeholders. However, the Strategy has been addressing particular sectors and levels of governance specifically, for whom there is more direct relevance.

The Strategy is relevant for Member States (Action 1), as it has acted as a stimulus to develop NASs and helped to keep adaptation high on the political agenda. The results from the open public consultation show that encouraging Member States to take action is one of the statements for which the strongest support exists among the respondents. The strategy is relevant also for capacity building and stepping up adaptation action at the regional and local levels (Action 2 and 3), Action 3 being mainly devoted to the local level, while encouraging support from the regional and national levels. As governments at regional and local levels often have fewer opportunities for funding research, it is quite relevant to generate and disseminate knowledge to them, for example through Climate-ADAPT (Action 5). Knowledge at the supra-national level, among others on river basins and mountain ranges, can help to enhance cross-border cooperation. But research projects (Action 4) and Climate-ADAPT, as they create and disseminate knowledge, are relevant for all stakeholder groups. In particular, the Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on Climate Change, supported by H2020, continues to make use of the Strategy as one of the main drivers in its efforts to help coordinate efforts in adaptation research amongst the Member States, and beyond, through its international collaboration, coordination and support actions (e.g. SINCERE).

Climate-proofing of EU policies (Action 6) is highly relevant for the development of adaptation capacity of different sectors in the EU, such as water, agriculture and forestry sectors. Without a consistent and centralised effort across different stakeholders and levels, these sectors would experience a varying degree of readiness for the challenges of a changing climate.

The Strategy was also assessed as relevant for the private sector and businesses notably by ensuring more resilient infrastructure and promoting insurance and financial products despite disagreement from some respondents to the open public consultation (Action 7 and 8). In principle, insurance and financial products have good potential to involve the private sector in adaptation, as companies can weigh the costs of insurance against the costs of taking adaptive measures themselves.

6.2.Effectiveness

6.2.1.To what extent have the objectives been achieved during the period 2013-2018?  118

This subsection examines to what extent the objectives have been achieved within the meaning of the performance indicators established in the 2013 impact assessment. It is based on the facts and observations of Chapter 4 Baseline. While the indicators are process-oriented, in further subsections a limited analysis of the effectiveness of the actions of the Strategy in terms of results is also provided (for more information on this limitation, please refer to Chapter 5).

Looking at the period 2013 to March 2018, none of the three specific objectives can be considered as fully fulfilled, although substantial progress has been made in each. With the exception of Objective 1a, all operational objectives relate to impacts to be achieved by 2020. See Annex VI for a full description of the objectives.

Specific Objective 1 “Promoting action by Member States”

§Operational Objective 1a was largely fulfilled by 2017 and is on track to be achieved in 2018 with regard to all Member States having adopted NASs. Ten Member States have adopted NASs since 2013, bringing the total to 25 out of the 28 Member States. Strategies are being developed in the remaining three Member States but have not yet been adopted. Information on regional and local strategies is less readily available and requires judgement of where they are “appropriate”, hence, the evaluation is inconclusive about their achievement.

Objective 1a does not include targets associated with the performance indicators for number and amount of LIFE grants, so the achievement of the operational objective with respect to this indicator cannot be determined. However, as described in Chapter 4, there are numerous ongoing adaptation-related LIFE projects which all involve experience transfer and can be classified as ‘lighthouse’ projects.

§Operational Objective 1b includes a target that, by 2020, all cities of more than 150 000 inhabitants have adopted an adaptation strategy. The figures presented in Chapter 4 show that there has been substantial but insufficient progress, with around one fourth of all EU cities (of all sizes) having adopted an adaptation strategy to date, suggesting the target may not be fully met by 2020. As regards cities of more than 150 000 inhabitants in particular, 40% are estimated to have adopted an adaptation strategy.

Specific Objective 2 “Promoting better informed decision-making”

§Operational Objective 2a seeks closure of all priority knowledge gaps identified in 2013. Although the knowledge base has increased substantially, none of the four priority knowledge gaps identified in the Strategy have been closed, strictly speaking. Knowledge increases and evolves but gaps may always exist. Furthermore, new knowledge gaps are emerging.

Objective 2a does not include targets associated with the performance measures for number and value of adaptation-related H2020 and JRC projects, so the achievement of the operational objective with respect to this indicator is indeterminable. However, as described in Chapter 4, numerous adaptation-related research projects have been launched since 2013.

§Operational Objective 2b has been achieved in advance of the target date of 2020, as Climate-ADAPT has made information on climate change adaptation more easily accessible for decision-makers, including Member States, local authorities and firms. Targets were not set for associated performance measures for Climate-ADAPT in relation to numbers of visitors, pages most visited and number of registered users, but in Chapter 4 evidence of substantial progress was presented from these respects. The performance measure assessing Climate-ADAPT’s content, databases and metadata will be fulfilled by EEA’s evaluation of Climate-ADAPT, which will be published in 2018.

Specific Objective 3 “Promoting adaptation in key vulnerable sectors”

§Operational Objective 3a establishes a target that by 2020, adaptation considerations have been mainstreamed in a consistent and comprehensive way in key EU policies. Significant progress has been made but there is still some way to go before mainstreaming of adaptation in key EU policies can be described as “consistent and comprehensive”.

Objective 3a includes a performance measure that there should be a list of policies and legal acts where adaptation has been mainstreamed, which has been fulfilled by work undertaken for this evaluation (see Annex XI).

Objective 3a includes a performance measure, without target, for the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) surveys, so the achievement of the operational objective with respect to this indicator is indeterminable. Besides, private organisations do not provide sufficiently detailed information in the surveys on climate adaptation action.

§Operational Objective 3b, on climate-proofing new major infrastructure investments by 2020, has been achieved: in the 2014-2020 programming period, approval of major projects funded by the ESIF is subject to “an analysis of the environmental impact, considering climate change adaptation and mitigation needs, and disaster resilience”.

Objective 3b includes a performance measure regarding the amount of adaptation infrastructure investments (co-) financed by EU funds and/or public financial institutions, which does not have a target, so the achievement of the operational objective with respect to this indicator cannot be determined. Evidence was presented in Chapter 4 that the key expenditure programmes likely to fund infrastructure are the ERDF and the CF. Expenditure on climate adaptation from total climate action finance reported by the EIB in 2017 suggests that financing for adaptation has not increased since 2015, an amount slightly inferior to two years before (EUR 20.7 and EUR 0.8 billion, respectively).

§Objective 3b has an associated performance measure for progress on the mapping exercise by ESOs. As evidenced in Chapter 4, good progress has been achieved through the publication of a standardisers’ guide to adaptation and through the shortlisting of standards to include adaptation provisions.

As indicated in Chapter 4, there is no associated operational target or performance indicator for Action 8 on insurance and finance. The progress towards the Commission’s aim specified in the Strategy will be assessed qualitatively in the next section.

6.2.2.To what extent has each of the eight actions of the Strategy contributed to these achievements? 

While each of the eight actions of the Strategy has had its specific and distinguishable impact on adaptation preparedness in the EU, it should not be underestimated that the existence of a strategy at EU level also exercised a general, intangible political drive in the relevant policy fields and at all levels of governance across the EU. The effect cannot be quantified, but stakeholder feedback confirmed its existence during the consultation.

Action 1 Member State strategies

It is difficult to establish with certainty the extent to which the Strategy has been effective in encouraging development and adoption of new NASs, as most Member States were already developing them at the time of the Impact Assessment. Other factors may have also been important, such as the Paris Agreement (discussed in Section 6.2.3 on drivers) and ex-ante conditionalities under the EU funds (in Section 6.4.1 on coherence). Nevertheless, it might be inferred that the actions under the Strategy have been effective in encouraging Member States to adopt NASs and plans, given that 25 Member States have now adopted them and the remainder are developing them. This conclusion was supported by the majority of the interviewed stakeholders, including government experts from eight Member States who argued that the Strategy played a role in ensuring increased political interest from the Member States to adopt NASs and plans, where they were not already in place, and to revise existing strategies and plans. Some stakeholders noted an increase in quality of the plans since the publication of the guidelines accompanying the Strategy.

However, there appear to be significant gaps in the effectiveness of Member States implementation of their strategies, with resources for the follow-through of commitments in some cases being reduced or withdrawn, or in other cases not identified. 119 The review of Member States NASs and plans (both adopted and in the making) in relation to the Commission’s ‘adaptation preparedness scoreboard’ suggests that:

·Most Member States have progressed on:

oCoordination (23 have horizontal coordination mechanisms involving different sectors)

oStakeholder involvement (26 Member States) and

oTransboundary cooperation (27 Member States).

·Half or more of Member States already have access to suitable data (14), have developed scenarios (23), and undertaken risk assessments (22), and most other Member States are making progress in these respects. 120  

·Less than half of the Member States have built up capacity to address adaptation (14 Member States) or funding for climate resilience (9 Member States), other Member States, with few exceptions, are progressing on these issues.

·Less than half of Member States have addressed climate change in relation to many aspects of implementation and review, including consideration of climate change in disaster risk plans (9), land use planning (15), major projects (13), and national (11), sectoral (14) and sub-national (9) monitoring and reporting. As regards monitoring and reporting, only five Member States have started to develop and use a comprehensive set of process or outcome based indicators to monitor implementation of adaptation strategies and plans.

A more complete overview of the adaptation scoreboard’s indicator assessments is included in Annex IX.

Stakeholders generally feel that the Strategy has been more effective in encouraging preparatory activities, i.e. preparing the ground, assessing risks, identifying options, and less effective in promoting assessment of options, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

Stakeholder views on the assistance provided by the Commission were mixed, with strong agreement that the Commission had provided an online platform on adaptation, methodologies (e.g. guidelines) and technical information (e.g. research), but less agreement about support to capacity building. Views were also mixed on the question whether the developed adaptation strategies responded to the expected impacts and needs, although there was a high level of agreement that the strategies have been effective in enhancing the preparedness and response capacity of Member States. Interviewees from national authorities suggested that whether Member States have actually used the Commission’s guidelines for strategies depended largely on whether the Member States in question had pre-existing adaptation strategies and governance mechanisms.

Stakeholders emphasised the role of adaptation strategies in raising awareness, supporting inter-ministerial and inter-sectoral exchange, collaboration and action, and the importance of having vulnerability assessments in place.

Integration of climate change adaptation in national risk assessment and cooperation between DRR and climate change adaptation communities have not yet occurred in most of the Member States.

The scoreboard suggests that NASs were in general not effective in identifying and addressing macro-regional and cross-border risks; although to some extent European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) programmes under the ESIF were able to address this shortfall.

Research suggests 121 that the existence of national plans facilitates the adoption of plans at the local level by acting as guidance documents, although this effect is by no means always evident, as in 2018 74% of cities across Europe still had no adaptation plan.

Action 2: LIFE funding

The LIFE Programme and its sub-programme in Climate Action have contributed to the objectives of the Strategy. Stakeholder feedback suggests that LIFE is acting as an effective catalyst, providing and disseminating solutions and best practices. The LIFE Mid-Term Evaluation 122 suggests this is also evident in nature projects, in addition to climate change adaptation projects.

Nevertheless, in spite of the potentially large impact of the ongoing projects through replication and transfer, the LIFE funding does not match the scale of the climate change challenge according to stakeholders. This view has been supported by the Committee Of Regions (CoR) 123 , which has recommended the continuity of the programme for the period post 2020 and a significant increase in the funds for the mitigation and adaptation projects.

The priorities of the ongoing LIFE climate change adaptation projects relate to the Strategy and are focused on vulnerable areas and sectors. According to the LIFE mid-term evaluation, the two integrated projects in Denmark and Spain (see Chapter 4) can potentially aid adoption and implementation of NASs and complementary regional or local strategies (objective 1).

Since 2014, all LIFE projects include measures for dissemination of information and are required to demonstrate potential for transferability in line with the performance indicator identified by the LIFE Impact Assessment. Stakeholders agreed that the programme contributes to knowledge transfer and sharing of best practices (objective 2). However, monitoring focuses on projects individually and is thus ineffective in assessing the programme’s role in knowledge transfer and capacity-building across the EU.

The LIFE mid-term evaluation indicated that further action is needed on the facilitation of replication and the promotion of performance indicators that would allow measurement beyond outputs in order to improve the effectiveness of the action. This is addressed in the Commission’s proposal for the new LIFE regulation under the next multiannual financial framework (2021-2027).

Action 3: Covenant of Mayors

Even though other drivers may also have been encouraging cities to adopt adaptation strategies or plans (see section 6.2.3), the importance of cities’ membership of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (Covenant) appears to have been the strongest positive influence 124 , especially in countries where autonomous local climate plans are rare and cities are not required by national legislation to adopt such plans. 125

According to an evaluation of the Mayors Adapt initiative carried out in 2014, through consultation of several local authorities' representatives, the Covenant has been successful in securing local political commitment for adaptation beyond political election cycles. 126 The Covenant has also improved peer-to-peer information exchange, access to information about funding for adaptation and technical assistance, for example through the Urban Adaptation Support Tool, on issues such as methods for vulnerability and risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis of adaptation measures.

The Covenant's common methods for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of local adaptation plans have been effective in building the technical capacity of local authorities.

While it is the cities that commit to act, the Covenant is also working on providing greater support to regional, provincial and sub-national authorities that can in turn help cities perform better.

Recently, an opinion of the CoR 127 and a resolution of the European Parliament 128 have both expressed their support for the Covenant. The Covenant has enabled to push ahead with establishing a Global Covenant of Mayors, as described in section 2 of Annex VIII. 

Action 4: Knowledge gap

There was strong agreement among targeted stakeholder survey respondents to the statement that “in general, the Strategy has helped to reduce knowledge gaps on adaptation in the EU". Respondents also identified sources of knowledge supported by the EU (e.g. Climate-ADAPT, LIFE adaptation projects, EEA reports, Copernicus, Coordinated Downscaling Experiment and JRC’s PESETA 129 ).

Interviewees noted there will always be knowledge gaps. The conclusions of JRC’s PESETA III, which will be published by the end of 2018, will help further reduce some gaps. Some of them are already available, and are included in Annex XIII. In particular, work is still needed on the benefits of adaptation and also co-benefits in other areas, not only losses avoided. The JPI Climate, an EU-wide consortium involving 20 Member States benefiting from a H2020 grant, has mapped research gaps in relation to climate services 130 . One key FP7 project for adaptation, High-End Climate Impacts and Extremes, 131 has worked on a set of global and regional views of different worlds at 1.5, 2, 4 and 6°C not only for Europe, but also for Northern Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

The most vulnerable European regions (e.g. Outermost Regions, Mediterranean regions, mountains) warrant enhanced approaches. 132 Fundamental gaps also persist in the identification of the expected impacts and vulnerability of sectors, for example the application of climate projections in disaster risk assessments. Regarding the knowledge gap on frameworks, models and tools to support decision-making, much work has been done in 39 studies, of which many have become available on the Climate-ADAPT website. 133  H2020, under its Societal Challenge 5, has funded several projects and studies on "climate change services" to address these issues. Less work has been done to close knowledge gaps associated with monitoring of adaptation: only eight EU studies have been identified and monitoring of adaptation actions still seems to be in its infancy.

Respondents also mentioned what has been useful for the uptake by policy makers of research results: the development of state-of-the-art reports on available knowledge, science-policy forums, workshops, events and web pages. However, there is normally a delay between research undertaken and its use by policy-makers to inform decision-making.

Action 5: Climate-ADAPT

The intended target audience of Climate-ADAPT are governmental organisations, and those who support them in the development and/or implementation of climate change adaptation strategies and actions such as research institutes. The EEA's separate evaluation of Climate-ADAPT 134 has shown that the majority of the actual users are indeed from these intended target groups. The evaluation also showed that the platform is used across all governance levels in Europe from city/local level to sub-national, national, transnational to the European level. However, some specific user groups are not yet sufficiently reached, i.e. experts at EU level and across Europe who are faced with adaptation challenges in vulnerable sectors, users from Eastern and Central European countries, as well as users less experienced on adaptation.

The EEA concludes that Climate-ADAPT has been an effective source of knowledge (including the knowledge generated through FP7, H2020, LIFE and Interreg) for feeding into a variety of policy processes. It has primarily been used to inform development of supporting documents (including case studies and impact and vulnerability assessments) but also, more directly, the development of adaptation plans and strategies, as well as decision making at all stages of the adaptation policy cycle.

It is used to identify the “state of the art” of adaptation in Europe, to develop tailor-made products for various policy processes, and as a starting point to extend searches. Hence, it has become a “first-stop shop” for adaptation information in Europe. A challenge for the future effectiveness of the platform is to identify its links and complementarities with other knowledge platforms at EU-level 135 , particularly in relation to climate services, disaster risk management, biodiversity and green infrastructure.

The dissemination and networking activities in relation to the platform brought about a steady increase in visitors since its creation.

Finally, the EEA’s evaluation identified five core content elements (EU policy; country strategies and actions; adaptation support tools; database; case studies and adaptation options) of Climate-ADAPT that should remain a focus for future developments of the platform.

The Open Public Consultation of the Strategy’s evaluation confirmed that Climate-ADAPT has been an important and useful information source in climate change adaptation work.

Action 6: ESIF/CAP/CFP

The review of literature and the consultation activities indicate that the Commission’s technical guidance on how to further integrate adaptation into the CAP, Cohesion Policy and the CFP has led to progress but has not yet proved effective in promoting comprehensive and consistent mainstreaming. Indeed, the legal provisions came in late 2013 and various guidance documents were prepared and published in April 2013 in parallel with Member States preparation of their Operational Programmes and Rural Development Programmes (RDPs). Because of this parallel timing the guidance documents could not be exploited to their full potential to influence the development of the Member State Operational Programmes and RDPs. Alongside the Public consultation, two recent studies on the mainstreaming of EU funds 136 state that adaptation differs across EU funds:

·Adaptation seems to have been mainstreamed to a much larger scale than mitigation in the CAP (i.e. agriculture and forestry) despite the fact that very few measures supported by the EAFRD have an explicit adaptation objective. This is to a large extent due to the tracking methodology at priority (and related focus area) level, hence including measures such as natural resource conservation/management not directly targeted at adaptation but with adaptation co-benefits. Targeted stakeholders considered that a more robust methodology and mechanisms to monitor the extent to which the CAP and its funding are supporting climate action objectives is needed.

·Under the ERDF and CF, a substantial amount of funding was directed at adaptation-related investments. Furthermore, major projects were only approved by the Commission if they were climate-resilient. 137  Yet, the stakeholder consultation suggested that further work on adaptation mainstreaming is needed in order to minimize negative impacts of infrastructural projects on rivers, streams and coastal areas, by prohibiting the reduction of storage capacity of flood plains and avoiding new risks in case of flooding.

·Compared to ERDF and CF, the focus on adaptation seems to be minor in the EMFF and ESF, which will be discussed in section 6.2.3.

Recent mainstreaming successes in EU funds include the increase of the climate earmarking in the Commission’s proposals for the next Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-27 (increased from 20% to 25%), with more specific objectives per fund, e.g. 30% for ERDF and 37% for CF. The Commission also proposed to make adaptation spending more traceable in that framework (e.g. in the proposal for a Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plans Regulation, see discussion in section 8 of Annex VIII).

As discussed in Chapter 4 and Annex XI, the Commission has actively worked towards mainstreaming of adaptation into the policy initiatives listed in the Strategy and also beyond, with tangible results.

There are still some areas where there is scope for mainstreaming, for instance:

·Human, Plant and animal health.

·Ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation.

·As regards DRR:

oThe development of a shared science/knowledge base and of a common vocabulary, for example to support the integration of climate change scenarios in risk management plans and risk assessments.

oThe communication between DRR and climate change adaptation communities.

oThe integration with 'build back better' policies and actions.

·Outermost Regions 138

·International policies (trade, security)

Action 7: Infrastructure

The work of the ESOs on revised and new standards is still ongoing and has not had the chance yet to contribute to the achievement of the infrastructure resilience objective.

It is also too early to assess the impact of CEN-CENELEC’s guide for addressing climate change adaptation in standards adopted in April 2016. Initial feedback has been positive with several hundred views and downloads of the guide after its publication, supported by webinars and workshops in several countries. The guide was offered to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the International Electro-technical Commission for their possible adoption. ISO has since used several of the CEN-CENELEC guide’s approaches in drafting a new ISO guide on climate mitigation and adaptation.

The Commission’s guidance documents on ensuring more resilient infrastructure that were published alongside the Strategy have been used for, among others, designing climate resilient infrastructure investments, providing advice on guidelines to developers of projects, and integrating climate in Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and EIA. Some sectors are well engaged, such as the water sector and the transport sector. Others, such as the waste sector or broadband sector, are less advanced. Still, the fact that of the 21 respondents in the targeted stakeholder survey only 8 knew about the Commission’s guidance document for project managers 139 and 2 have actually used them suggests that there is room for improvement in the awareness and actual use of these guidance documents. User feedback on the quality of the guidance was mixed: a private consultancy found them useful, while an expert providing technical assistance to project developers in the context of JASPERS 140 considered the language was a bit too technical.

The climate proofing of major projects has demonstrated that it is quite possible for infrastructure investments to include a climate vulnerability and risk assessment, and to identify, appraise and integrate relevant adaptation solutions. The approach included technical assistance (JASPERS) to the Member States combined with guidance and training from the Commission and the EIB. Additionally, there are examples from the Member States where the same approach – based on a climate vulnerability and risk assessment – has been applied at network level to address climate hotspots (e.g. main roads network). 

The guide from the EUFIWACC 141 was published in 2016 and has already triggered the development of climate resilient metrics and other methodologies that facilitate the integration of adaptation in investment decision-making, mainly by Multilateral Development Banks.

Evidence presented in Chapter 4 shows that the level of financing for adaptation infrastructure by public financial institutions has remained steady following the publication of the Strategy in 2013. The long lead time for project finance would suggest that more time is necessary for immediate impact to be visible.

Action 8: Insurance and finance

The 2017 study issued by the Commission has provided an overview of successful cases, practices, general principles and recommendations of managing climate risk in insurance. 142  

However, Action 8 of the Strategy has not directly resulted in increased market penetration of natural disaster insurance, but improved overall resilience and implication of the insurance sector in climate risk management may indirectly enhance market access.

The study resulted in a better understanding of the potential of risk-based insurance pricing. However, to unleash this potential, significant regulatory changes in capital requirements, solvency and insurance distribution would be necessary, and this work is still in an early stage of development. The promotion of a market for disaster risk insurance may have led to the greater use of financial products, and internalisation of climate costs, but it is not possible to determine how important the contribution of the Strategy has been.

Some stakeholders, like the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) 143 said they were not aware of follow-up on the Commission’s side since the Green Paper on Insurance. Stakeholders had in general mixed views on how effective the Commission’s activities have been to promote insurance and other financial products for resilient investment and business decisions.

The Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth, described in Chapter 4, was adopted in March 2018, and it is equally relevant for the Commission’s aim to use the potential of financial products for risk management and resilience in investment and business decisions. Even more recently, in May 2018, the Commission has followed up with three concrete proposals: a unified EU classification system of sustainable economic activities ('taxonomy'), disclosure requirements on how institutional investors integrate environmental, social and governance in their risk processes and, finally, a new category of benchmarks to compare the carbon footprint of investments. A technical expert group set up by the Commission is now dealing with four topics linked to the Action Plan, (taxonomy, low carbon benchmarks, an EU green bonds standard and climate-related disclosures). However, as the Action Plan was only adopted in March 2018, it is too early to judge its effectiveness in promoting the aim. The initiative is planned to bring forward further legal proposals until the 2nd half of 2019 and implementation of some of the measures will hopefully start as of 2020.

6.2.3.What drivers and barriers (expected or unexpected) contributed to or stood in the way of implementation of the EU Adaptation Strategy and how did they affect it?

Action 1: Member State strategies

Drivers:

·experience of extreme weather events;

·knowledge of economic, environmental and social costs of inaction (appears to have less influence than experience of climate impacts);

·integration of adaptation and mitigation;

·the establishment of the global adaptation goal by the Paris Agreement;

·Starting from 2007, LIFE funding included projects to turn adaptation strategies into plans at the national and sub-national levels, such as for Cyprus, completed in April 2017. They acted as drivers for the adoption and implementation of strategies even prior to the publication of the Strategy in 2013.

Barriers:

·The majority of the respondents to the open public consultation agreed that Member States tend to provide reactive response to climate threats, instead of more long-term, proactive planning.

·The landscape in terms of monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the national strategies is heterogeneous and incomplete at EU and Member State level. The issue is analysed further in section 3 of Annex VIII.

Action 2: LIFE

Drivers

A tripling of the budget for Climate Action under LIFE (25%, i.e. EUR 864 million) compared to the LIFE+ Programme in 2007-2013.

Barriers:

The LIFE mid-term evaluation has highlighted that integrated projects are complex and need public-private partnership models or grant funding to be viable.

With regard to the Natural Capital Financing Facility (NCFF), key barriers appear to be:

·The scarcity of affordable finance for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs);

·Low or risky profitability of projects. It has taken time for the EIB, investors and project promoters to understand how adaptation projects such as flood defences or urban spaces can generate revenue or cost savings from goods that are freely available for people to use. The mid-term evaluation suggests this could be an area where support through the NCFF instrument in combination with LIFE grants for integrated projects or ERDF grants would merit further investigation;

·From the perspective of the EIB, lack of technical assistance in developing viable business models for complex innovative projects may be a barrier to the provision of loans by the NCCF. Therefore, the EIB continues to build its capacity to support climate change adaptation, including through providing technical assistance for project development under the NCFF support facility.

Stakeholders noted that:

·The complexities of applying for applying for LIFE funding may be a substantial barrier to its uptake;

·The funds made available for adaptation were still far from what would be needed, and in particular compared to the support available under the regional funds. There is insufficient public and private finance to leverage with LIFE funding.

Action 3: Covenant of Mayors

Drivers:

·According to research 144 , while membership of the Covenant of Mayors has the highest correlation with the availability of local adaptation plans, membership of other climate and sustainability city networks (such as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), C40 145 ) as well as adaptive capacity 146 and Gross Domestic Product GDP per capita also correlate positively. Cities’ current capacity to engage in climate actions was a more important driver of adaptation planning than anticipated climate change impacts and vulnerabilities. Adaptive capacity was most strongly associated with GDP per capita, which was in turn significantly lower in cities at high risk of climate change impacts. Nevertheless, the stakeholder survey suggests that knowledge of the costs of inaction may still have a greater influence on decision makers at sub-national or local level than at a national level. This in turn suggests that cost-benefit analyses may be more beneficial when they are relevant to local decisions;

·The larger the city gets, the more often they have an autonomous adaptation plan; 147

·The presence of national regulation has a significant impact on local climate planning. In countries where local climate plans are compulsory 148 there are 5 times more cities with adaptation plans. 149  

Stakeholders noted that:

·The adoption of a NAS or plan often catalyses action at a subnational or local level;

·Several adaptation-related EU or national projects have helped to foster local adaptation 150 ;

·The experience of extreme weather events also acted as a catalyst.

Barriers:

A report on the Mayors Adapt initiative identified the following barriers 151 :

·Adopted urban and local adaptation strategies and plans are generally not shared, which reduces the transfer of best practice;

·Cities working on adaptation do not always become members of adaptation initiatives, as they may perceive that a need for additional reporting outweighs potential benefits. Encouraging support from national public bodies such as ministries or national energy agencies (the so-called National Coordinators, within the Covenant) will, therefore, be crucial;

·Limited resources meant materials and tools could only be made available in English, which created language barriers.

Stakeholders noted the existence of the following barriers:

·Insufficient financial resources;

·The challenge of translating results of cost-benefit analyses to a local level;

·Lack of awareness and relevant technical expertise among staff of local authorities;

·Uncertainties in climate change projections, which would have to be further downscaled to be useful at the local level.

Action 4: Knowledge gaps

Drivers:

The majority of respondents to the targeted stakeholder survey agreed that a range of other research activities supported at national or local level, not directly related to the Strategy, have also helped to address key knowledge gaps. 152  

Barriers:

·Institutional barriers – The way in which themes are separated and structured within the Commission complicate the joint design of research and innovation programmes, which has meant some knowledge gaps have not yet been sufficiently addressed, e.g. in relation to health and climate change, a thematic area relevant to all four knowledge gaps identified in the Strategy;

·Lack of interest in some Member States, for whom climate change adaptation is not a political priority. For example, there are large differences among Member States in the number of proposals on climate change submitted in the context of H2020;

·Insufficient interactions between scientists and practitioners – adaptation is still seen as a science-led issue. In the EU15, formal mechanisms for interaction between scientists and practitioners exist, less so in the rest of the EU;

·Access to data – Member States either do not collect data on past losses, are reluctant to share it, or make data difficult to compare due to methodological differences. The lack of data was perceived in the targeted stakeholder survey as a serious barrier to assess vulnerability and potential impacts;

·A need for greater cooperation between policymakers across Member States – by contrast, researchers are generally willing to cooperate and work together. Related points made by respondents to the targeted stakeholder survey were that Member States have different historical backgrounds and natural resources and that there is a lack of integrated approaches and methodologies.

Stakeholders also highlighted the following barriers:

·Researchers struggle to translate their research into results that can be used by decision makers and non-specialists. In particular, it is challenging to convey and manage uncertainty;

·Access to research funding at national level – direct research is not eligible for funding by the LIFE programme and is limited to H2020, which (apart from the European Research Council) is focused on large projects with partners from different Member States. It may be difficult to secure funding for country-specific research;

·The complexities of combining adaptation across sectors and with mitigation are challenging;

·Sectoral or local decision-makers do not know where to find relevant research results unless they have been involved in its development.

Action 5: Climate-ADAPT

The EEA 153 , who maintains the Climate-ADAPT website, identified the following drivers and barriers.

Drivers:

·Increasing interest from politicians and practitioners in adaptation;

·The increasing importance of adaptation for the international policy agenda.

Barriers:

·Difficulty in engaging Commission services which could contribute to the website development and dissemination other than DG CLIMA –The establishment of an advisory group for Climate-ADAPT is a positive step but came only in 2016, whereas the platform started in 2012. The various new thematic platforms launched in the EU 154 need to be coordinated with the development of existing platforms, including the Biodiversity Information System for Europe, Water Information System for Europe and the Disaster Risk Knowledge Management Centre;

·Evolution of the Covenant of Mayors initiative – The launch of Mayors Adapt in 2014 and the subsequent merger with the Covenant of Mayors initiative, as well as extension of the latter into a global initiative in 2016, has led to difficulties in Climate-ADAPT implementing the specific Information Technology needs of the related adaptation support tool and provision of information on cities’ actions in collaboration with the Mayors Adapt;

·Limited annual resources for maintaining the platform. 155

Action 6: ESIF / CAP / CFP

Drivers:

EU level:

·The establishment of the 20% climate mainstreaming target and the development of a climate expenditure tracking methodology, even if concerns were raised that mainstreaming in all projects and all sectors may not have been fully implemented by managing authorities at investment levels; 156

·The connections made between adaptation, risk prevention and civil protection in Cohesion policy, which have helped to raise awareness among more actors in the Member States;

·The obligation in the CPR for the Commission to approve major projects only if they are climate resilient;

·The revision of the EIA Directive in 2014 imposing climate vulnerability assessments of projects where relevant. The transposition deadline for this Directive was 16 May 2017.

National level:

·NASs;

·Extreme weather events, floods and forest fires.

Barriers:

·Many adaptation measures need to be applied at the local and regional level, and concern a multitude of actions that cannot be summarised in one performance indicator. As such, it is much more difficult to establish high-level political targets for adaptation than for mitigation;

·The lack of focus on adaptation and of relevant targets within the Europe 2020 Strategy 157 has made it difficult to drive adaptation actions at the same level as for mitigation;

·ESF and EMFF do not specifically address TO5 (“Promoting climate change adaptation, risk prevention and management”) in spite of impacts on vulnerable population, employment and fish stocks. The lack of climate integration in the EMFF and ESF was also emphasised by the European Court of Auditors (ECA), and acknowledged by the Commission in its answer (while considering the different potential contributions of each of the funds according to its primary missions) 158 .

·There is a knowledge gap on spill-over effects from third countries, the understanding of which would be a first step towards considering effective mainstreaming of adaptation into the EU’s trade policy (see also section 4 in Annex VIII and Case Study 2 in Annex XIV).

Stakeholders in the energy, transport and construction sectors identified the following barriers:

·Uncertainties relating to climate impacts and extreme events (frequency and magnitude);

·Need for climate proofing standards;

·No legal obligation to consider climate risk (or very limited).

They were joined by other vulnerable sectors (agriculture, forestry, fisheries) in pointing to:

·The lack of collaboration between sectors. In one of the case studies developed for this evaluation (see Case Study 1 in Annex XIV), stakeholders in the fight against forest fires identified a need to further enhance coherence between climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction across all levels of governance (global, European, national levels);

·Insufficient funding.

Action 7: Infrastructure

Drivers:

·The obligation in the ESIF CPR for the Commission to approve major projects 159 only if they are climate resilient;

·The revision of the EIA directive imposing climate vulnerability assessments of projects where relevant;

·The involvement of some European cities in two non-EU initiatives, ‘100 resilient cities’ 160 initiative and the ‘Making Cities Resilient’ 161 campaign;

·The EIB’s requirements set out in the Bank’s Environmental and Social Handbook 162  which all projects must fulfil to secure finance. The Handbook provides that proposed projects undergo a climate vulnerability assessment and apply adaptation measures to ensure the sustainability of the project if necessary.

Barriers:

·The translation of adaptation expertise into local languages is needed for stakeholders in the private sector;

·Apart from major projects, other EU-funded infrastructure projects under shared management are not subject to such prior approval by the Commission.

Stakeholders from the energy, transport and building/construction sector listed:

·lack of awareness;

·lack of standards/guidelines;

·lack of data and the degree of uncertainty in impacts;

·a knowledge gap in the private sector between high-level projections and more specific information needs to understand the risks.

Action 8: Insurance and finance

This section is based on the views of two international organisations in the insurance sector 163 as well as on expertise available to the Commission services.

Drivers:

·The presence of insurance pools and systems controlled by the state, which affects demand on the part of industry;

·The maturity of natural disaster insurance markets. In some Member States (e.g. France, United Kingdom) the market is mature, as the countries have historically dealt with these issues, while in other European countries relevant insurance products have only been introduced more recently;

·Cost-effective insurance seems to be facilitated by a tradition of collaboration between public and private sector risk managers, in some cases shaped by some form of public reinsurance support for catastrophic losses;

·Under the Cohesion Policy, national and/or regional risk assessments for disaster management (including in relation to climate risks) are a precondition for funding 164 . Where relevant, there is a requirement to consider the NASs. In particular, the EU Solidarity Fund specifies that payments are limited to non-insurable damages 165 . This way, EU disaster risk management incentivizes risk reduction;

·In the promotion of a market for disaster risk insurance, other financial mechanisms may also act as drivers, for example, the regulation in France obliging banks to disclose climate risks associated with their assets.

Barriers:

·A lack of coherence between national insurance markets, which makes a simple approach to integrate insurance in disaster risk reduction and adaptation challenging; 166

·Difficulty to compare market penetration rates among Member States, as data collection is not standardised, and especially data related to commercial activities is often unavailable;

·There is low general awareness of climate risks;

·Insufficient reliance on public-private partnerships where governments’ risk prevention and response can benefit from the insurance sector’s knowledge of risks;

·Disaster risk management and climate adaptation are mostly dealt with in different ministries in the Member States;

·Member States often focus on extreme weather events when they happen but are not necessarily planning ahead. Risk assessments usually only span 2-5 years while climate projections are longer term. Research projects modelling short- to mid-term climate change could help Member States and insurers to link disaster risk strategies to climate change adaptation;

·Insurance risk models are traditionally based on historic trends of increase of insured and non-insured losses related to climate events, while they lack well-developed scenarios including future increases in damage;

·To date, insurance companies have been reluctant to structurally share detailed information. This problem could be overcome by appointing a third party playing an enabling role in designing insurance and risk transfer products that are capable of addressing climate related risk transfer;

·To date, natural disasters have been covered by annual insurance contracts, while insurers should seek to explore provision of longer-term contracts instead of annual ones;

·To date, there is no clear classification or typology of investments that contribute to adaptation to climate change;

·The profitability of adaptation-related projects is low or risky and there is a lack of technical assistance to such projects (see discussion under Action 2 above).

6.2.4.What effects has the Strategy produced so far for different stakeholders, e.g. according to socio-economic background and vulnerability?

The Strategy’s objectives and associated actions are directly relevant to Commission services, Member State authorities, regional and local authorities, researchers, and private decision makers. The same is true of the Impact Assessment's operational objectives and performance measures, which did not aim to measure the Strategy’s societal impacts. This question, therefore, extends beyond the normal scope of the evaluation.

The targeted stakeholder survey elicited too low a response to inform any meaningful differentiation of the Strategy’s effects on different stakeholders. The public consultation questionnaire led to a higher response; however, it still includes answers from only 217 private individuals from 22 Member States. This is too small a sample for drawing societal conclusions. 167

The actions taken by the stakeholders directly targeted by the Strategy are expected to exercise a multiplier effect (as explained in the Intervention Logic section of Chapter 2) and thus result in wide-ranging indirect impacts across society. The Strategy foresees that adaptation action will bring new market opportunities, jobs and benefits in such sectors as agricultural technologies, ecosystem management, construction, water management and insurance. For example, mainstreaming of climate change adaptation in the CAP by policy and decision makers will provide benefits to farmers through reducing climate sensitivities and increasing their adaptive capacities to cope with climate change.

Appropriate performance indicators would be necessary to measure specific impacts on stakeholders or sectors. They would also need to be monitored over a longer period of time than the 5 years since the adoption of the Strategy, because most of the effects envisaged by the Strategy are longer-term. While the cohesion policy funds under the 2014-2020 MFF already include indicators on e.g. the number of people protected from floods and forest fires, the time lag effect with regard to reporting does not allow drawing meaningful conclusions on impacts. Similarly, at the time of the mid-term evaluation of other programmes such LIFE or H2020 that this evaluation looked at, final results from implemented projects were not yet available, and any figures in those evaluations were based on estimated results from projects in their inception phase. After the ESIF funded projects of the current multiannual financial period come to an end, it will be possible to aggregate some societal indicators. Still, a more consistent analysis with a wider scope will be needed to effectively map the socio-economic impacts of adaptation policies.

6.3.Efficiency

6.3.1.How adequate were the resources for the overall implementation of the EU Adaptation Strategy and how proportionate were those resources across its eight actions?

Administrative costs directly resulting from the Strategy are low and mostly limited to the Commission 168 , with notable exception of funding programmes that are co-financed by other (e.g. national) entities. Costs for other stakeholders resulting from the Strategy are voluntary in the majority of cases and linked to access to EU funds.

A summary of the resources spent on implementation with a focus on the administrative costs of the actions of the Strategy is presented in the table in section 11 of Annex VIII. It does not include costs voluntarily incurred by stakeholders to benefit from instruments under the umbrella of the Strategy (such as LIFE, H2020, ESIF/CAP/CFP).

For Actions 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8 the costs have been limited to preparing guidance, maintaining web portals, covering the human resources costs for coordination (such as for the outsourced Covenant of Mayors) and the organisation of conferences. Much of the work, such as mainstreaming into other policy areas, was carried out as part of the Commission’s core activity (e.g. meeting with Member State experts in the framework of expert groups on adaptation or Standing forestry committee). In these cases, due to the leverage effect, the actions can be considered as highly cost-efficient.

Actions 2 (LIFE) and 4 (mainly H2020) are making direct use of funding programmes where the costs of implementation of the strategy were higher because of the financing of demonstration and research projects.

Overall, we can conclude that the benefits linked to the Strategy (described in detail in Chapter 6.2) are tangible and are achieved at low costs thanks to the multiplier effects of its actions in terms of guidance, coordination, dissemination, demonstration, mainstreaming into other policies and funds. However, most of the operational objectives of the Strategy have targets fixed for 2020, while the funding programmes used under some actions are multi-annual and subject to their own evaluation processes. This results in difficulty at this point in time to judge the efficiency of resource use in the different actions of the Strategy.

Some specific observations can be made on the efficiency of selected Actions.

Action 1 Member States: The cost of developing the guidance for the Member States on adaptation strategies was negligible compared to the fact that several Member States highlighted the usefulness of the guidance and its political importance in stimulating adaptation policy. Although the exact role of the Strategy is unclear, being one of multiple drivers, the increased number of strategies adopted and low costs point to a cost-efficient use of resources.

Action 2 LIFE: The LIFE mid-term evaluation estimated that for the entire LIFE Programme, including the adaptation priority area under the Climate Action sub-programme, the anticipated results of LIFE projects would have a societal benefit of EUR 1.7 billion, which was four times the overall LIFE budget for 2014. The LIFE mid-term evaluation however underlined that it is premature to determine whether the LIFE programme provides value for money at an early stage of implementation, basing their analysis on a series of projects selected under the 2014 calls for proposals. Moreover, the external study supporting the mid-term evaluation has concluded that the LIFE management structure appears to be less costly than the management structure of other EU-funded programmes.

Action 3 Covenant of Mayors: The annual resource commitments from the Commission are relatively low and appear to be adequate and efficiently used, given the increasing number of cities committing to the adaptation aspects of the Covenant of Mayors.

Action 4 Knowledge gaps: As none of the knowledge gaps identified in 2013 have been fully bridged, it is too early to more precisely estimate the adequacy of resources regarding bridging knowledge gaps. Nevertheless, stakeholders agreed that the Strategy has helped to reduce knowledge gaps on adaptation in the EU. The majority of funds were channelled through H2020, which was subject to an in-depth interim evaluation in May 2017; that interim evaluation concluded the research framework programme is in general efficient. 169  

For Action 5 Climate-ADAPT: The recorded growth in information materials on Climate-ADAPT and visitor numbers in the last years suggest that the resources are having a positive impact. Further collaboration with Commission Services would help to improve overall efficiency in how knowledge inputs are collated on Climate-ADAPT. Overall, resources appear to be adequate at present but, to continue to grow the Climate-ADAPT user base and accommodate the ever-growing volume of content, resources may need to increase in future, even if greater efficiency in collation can be achieved.

6.3.2.How do the different stakeholders view the monitoring of the implementation of the EU Adaptation Strategy? Which aspects are perceived as an unnecessary burden, if any, and to what extent?

The open public consultation also tested a preliminary conclusion that the monitoring and administrative burden of the Strategy was very light. When asked, 65% of respondents were neutral or undecided, and most of the remainder agreed it was very light. It is difficult to judge whether the non-agreeing respondents were referring to administrative burden directly stemming from the Strategy (such as reporting requirements under LIFE projects) or to burden imposed by the mainstreaming into EU funds whose use has to be monitored anyway under the ESIF framework.

In any case, no positive evidence of unnecessary burden was found. The ECA noted that there is a lack of adaptation-related indicators and that monitoring and audit of adaptation actions is both more difficult and carried out far less than for mitigation. 170   171

The monitoring activities related to Action 2 LIFE, Action 4 Knowledge gaps (H2020) and Action 6 ESIF/CAP/CFP are largely common to the respective support programmes they are part of. Only any adaptation-specific issues are mentioned below. Actions 5, 7 and 8 have no monitoring carried out by stakeholders.

Action 1 Member State strategies - Outside the scope of the Strategy, the Monitoring Mechanism Regulation 172 (Art. 15) obliges Member States to report to the Commission on their ‘national adaptation planning and strategies, outlining their implemented or planned actions to facilitate adaptation to climate change’ by 2015 and every 4 years thereafter. This is a strong legal obligation on reporting, but it does not stem from the Strategy itself. This information is published on the country pages of Climate-ADAPT where Member States can provide interim voluntary updates. It serves as a source of information for the Commission’s monitoring of the implementation of Action 1 primarily through the adaptation scoreboard. This is a document created and maintained by the Commission, Member States are only asked to comment on its draft versions, which represents a light monitoring and reporting burden.

For Action 3, the monitoring of adaptation under the Covenant of Mayors has resulted in costs being incurred by the managing office (funded by the Commission), by JRC of the European Commission and by the cities themselves (voluntarily). The Covenant of Mayors requires signatories to submit a progress report monitoring implementation every two years following submission of their action plan. The template for Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAP) contains an adaptation scoreboard that enables local authorities to conduct a self-assessment of their adaptation status. Involvement in the Covenant of Mayors is voluntary and therefore does not impose mandatory administrative burden.

Under Action 6 ESIF/CAP/CFP, managing authorities are required to provide financial information to the Commission on the amount of allocations and spending for different types of investments (i.e. categories of intervention), each of which has specific climate-related weighting. The methodology 173 for this differs between the ERDF/CF, EAFRD and EMFF. The mainstreaming methodology for the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) is defined in another regulation. The methodology currently does not fully differentiate between allocations for climate mitigation and adaptation (it provides detailed view of the different categories of intervention and their climate relevance but there is no explicit split whether these are related to climate adaptation or mitigation as many times measures effecting mitigation also have a positive impact on adaptation).

Many measures that are good for mitigation also entail co-benefit for adaptation and vice-versa. Hence an identification of measures exclusively supporting mitigation or adaptation objectives would neither be desirable nor feasible. This however does not prevent from tracking expenditures supportive of mitigation and adaptation objectives separately, even if a certain proportion of such expenditures is then counted twice.

Adaptation activities by private organisations reported to the CDP do not provide sufficiently detailed information on climate adaptation action, hence, it would be valuable to develop a more relevant indicator to monitor adaptation mainstreaming by businesses.

6.4.Coherence

6.4.1.How well does the Adaptation Strategy fit together with other relevant EU legislation and policies, or similar initiatives at international, national or regional level? Are there any gaps or inconsistencies between policies? Are there components to be further developed or added to increase coherence of actions?

Coherence with other EU policies and initiatives

The array of impacts of a changing climate across all areas of human activity, and across all policy areas, means that it requires a cross cutting and multi-sectoral approach. Mainstreaming adaptation into other policy areas is a major tool in adaptation policy, and by definition is aimed at ensuring coherence. One of the Strategy objectives is the climate-proofing of vulnerable sectors, and most of its actions pursue the delivery of adaptation in other policy instruments and sectors.

Table 6-1 – Key areas of synergy between adaptation and other EU policies

Further information on these areas of synergy is provided in section 12 of Annex VIII.

 Coherence with international policies and initiatives

Coherence with action at the international level was discussed in Chapter 3.

Coherence with national and regional policies and initiatives

Coherence with national priorities needs to address both the wide range of different situations and priorities among the 28 Member States, and to recognise the Commission’s lower level of influence in areas of policy without detailed EU legislation. The design of the Strategy clearly helps to avoid incoherence in the sense of conflict between legal requirements, as it relies on voluntary measures at national and sub-national level, supported by guidance for such measures and a monitoring of progress by the Commission.

Stakeholders participating in a break-out session of the first workshop in April 2017 noted that national-level coherence had in part been facilitated by the mainstreaming of adaptation in EU policy in a range of sectors and that sectoral coherence benefited from an EU-wide approach.

The Commission’s guidance on the preparation of NASs, and the adaptation scoreboard developed under Action 1, include several areas which reflect on the level of coherence within national and sub-national policies, but also in transboundary issues. This guidance is coherent with the efforts needed at national level for more coordination between adaptation and other policy areas, and stakeholders suggest that the Strategy has had a helpful impact on improving this coordination.

Assessing coherence at sub-national level is more complicated. The Covenant of Mayors initiative to some extent helps to overcome this complexity, although its coverage is not yet sufficiently wide to ensure coherence of action at local level.

The lack of coordination within Member States suggests that there is a need for further action to help administrations overcome behavioural and other barriers to coordination.

One further area of added value stems from the positive reinforcement of national strategies through cross-border or transnational cooperation by simultaneous implementation of adaptation policies in neighbouring countries. An example is in the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) 174 . The specific case study on the EUSDR (see Case Study 3 in Annex XIV) reveals how shared biophysical climate risks can prompt informal and lasting cooperation between administrations, without institutional or financial burdens. The EUSDR helped participating countries identify and respond to transboundary adaptation challenges, particularly through improved dialogue and exchange of information.

Internal coherence

There is a strong evidence of coherence between several actions within the Strategy. Action 5 (Climate-ADAPT) is meant to present information on adaptation action in the EU, it also offers information linked to several other actions, such as Action 4 on knowledge gaps and Action 3 on the Covenant of Mayors. Since 2007, nine LIFE projects under Action 2 have supported the development of climate adaptation strategies or plans under Action 1 (total budget: EUR 16 million). The coherence between efforts under Action 6, through the use of ex ante conditionalities in the ESIF and the encouragement of NASs under Action 1 has already been noted. The focus on climate-proofing of major projects is building on the objectives of both Cohesion Policy (Action 6) and resilient infrastructure (Action 7). Similarly, the development of risk management tools under the CAP 2014-2020 and the foreseen emphasis announced in the Communication on the Future of Food and Farming 175 is coherent with the broader insurance objective of Action 8.

The implementation of Action 4 has increased the rate of development of climate services that identify and quantify climate risks and impacts. The Copernicus Climate Change Services (C3S) is one such recently introduced service, which in synergy with Action 8, can usefully complement the insurance industry’s expertise. In recent years, the insurance industry has also started to integrate geo-location and weather projections into their underwriting of risks.

A more comprehensive identification of links between actions could have improved coherence even further. There might have been greater coherence had there been more centralised management of the 20% climate mainstreaming target for the 2014-2020 EU budget with greater separate attention to adaptation, as recommended by the ECA in 2016. 176

6.5.EU added value

6.5.1.What is the added value of addressing climate adaptation at EU level, in addition to the vertical and horizontal cooperation at national level?

The Strategy has proved effective in making significant progress towards its objectives up to 2020. It has generated added value, while the right of initiative remained at the appropriate levels of governance, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.

There appears to be less added value where action was already underway prior to the Strategy, although most elements of the Strategy appear to add at least some value, compared with horizontal and vertical actions at Member State level.

The clearest added value appears to be in areas where the EU is encouraging identification and bridging of knowledge gaps and EU wide research (Objective 2 – Actions 4 and 5, and also Action 2), and in areas where the EU is responsible for integrating adaptation into its own policies (Objective 3 – Action 6, obviously, as no other entity than the EU could do this). Through climate mainstreaming into ESIF, which is implemented by Member States under shared management, it is also possible for the EU to influence policy making and budget allocation in Member States towards climate action. There would be even more EU added value if adaptation was mainstreamed also in areas where the EU has exclusive competence, such as trade and fisheries (the reasons for the absence of mainstreaming in these areas are discussed in section 6.2.3). In relation to Action 8, the main EU added value appeared to be in taking up a facilitative role in overcoming the main hurdles for public-private cooperation, starting with increased understanding of insurance markets in Member States through the insurance study and two thematic workshops organised by the Commission. 177 Thus, increased market-penetration of risk transfer mechanisms across Europe was supported by EU action without unifying or harmonising the national insurance markets.

In general, the consultation indicates that while stakeholders such as governments at different levels would have certainly worked independently on adaptation without EU intervention, there would neither have been equivalent progress nor a collective approach without its encouragement. The majority of stakeholders agreed that equivalent progress would not have been made in the absence of the Strategy in particular for Actions 3 to 6.

Specific details on the EU added value of the Strategy’s actions are provided below.

Action 1 Member State strategies. As pointed out in Chapter 4, adaptation strategies had been drafted in 15 Member States before the launch of the Strategy. A 2014 EEA report 178 noted that 19 of the European countries surveyed identified “EU policies” as a driver for adaptation action, second only to extreme weather events (28 countries). While it is less clear what proportion of this can be attributed to the Strategy or to other policy drivers, it seems likely that the process of discussing the Strategy, and entering into the commitments set out in the 2013 Council conclusions, had an impact on the political salience of the subject. The presence of common guidelines for national strategies and an assessment framework in the form of the adaptation preparedness scoreboard also provided added value as EU-level coordination activities. For example, the guidelines have been used by Member States that had not previously developed NASs or by others when developing subnational or sectoral adaptation plans.

Action 2 LIFE. The mid-term evaluation 179 Reported that stakeholders largely acknowledged (95%) the catalytic role that LIFE is playing for better solidarity and responsibility-sharing in preserving the common good of the EU’s environment and climate, leading to less costly implementation of environmental and climate change policies. Notably, the added value of LIFE is that EU funding enables project beneficiaries to deliver results that in most cases would either not be realised at national, regional and/or and in particular at local level, or would be pursued at slower pace and on a lesser scale. This is especially so for Member States that have fewer financial mechanisms in place or when these mechanisms are difficult to access. Stakeholder interviews revealed that the added value was in providing funding for adaptation at a local level for which local authorities may have difficulty in finding other sources. For instance, a specific LIFE integrated project in Denmark has the possibility to mobilise hundreds of millions of EUR of complementary funding, assisting implementation of the relevant adaptation strategy.

Action 3 Covenant of Mayors. The Covenant, as an EU-level network of local authorities, enables peer-to-peer learning among European local authorities coming from different Member States but facing similar climate risks. It has increased local ownership of the EU Strategy for adaptation, providing impetus to the delivery of the EU’s climate and energy objectives in general. The Covenant provided access to Europe-wide adaptation knowledge produced and disseminated because of the Strategy, and in particular on the knowledge gaps the Strategy identified. Through the Covenant, the EU has been of direct assistance to local authorities and experts, in particular by optimising links with EU funding opportunities to carry out adaptation projects. The Covenant of Mayors offered a uniform level of support, sometimes making up for gaps in national support: the value of the Covenant of Mayors is particularly high in countries where similar national networks are absent 180 . In addition, the launch of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, has offered European cities further benefits and a voice at international level.

Action 4 Knowledge gaps Results from the targeted stakeholder survey strongly support that there is added value in H2020 and work undertaken by the JRC in addressing adaptation knowledge gaps. The availability of EU funding supports significant research calls, complementing and contributing to global research and innovation efforts. The contribution of H2020 funded research to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports is significant and important. 181 In addition, many climate change impacts are continent wide (e.g. the last major floods in Europe covered several countries): in this context, the action by the Commission in addressing knowledge gaps through H2020 and the work of the JRC are identified as important in accelerating progress in the understanding of the issues at hand.

Overall, in combination, the targeted stakeholder survey, literature and interviews provide good evidence of strong added value from the work on knowledge gaps at EU level. There is also a continuing need for assessment reports from EEA, which are one of the recognised ways to disseminate research results in an understandable way for policymakers. Over 85% of 157 respondents to the open public consultation agreed or strongly agreed that one of the areas of clearest added value of acting at EU level is in bridging knowledge gaps. Action 5 is linked to this endeavour.

Action 5 Climate-ADAPT. An evaluation by the EEA of Climate-ADAPT notes that Climate-ADAPT adds value by providing an EU reference point for the state-of-the-art of adaptation in Europe. The literature, targeted stakeholder survey and interview evidence gathered under this evaluation also point to good evidence of added value through provision of background information, peer-to-peer learning and a source of inspiration. There is an indication that this may be more notable at transnational and national scale, than at sub-national or city scale.

Action 6 Mainstreaming. The EU is responsible for integrating adaptation into its own policies, so the added value of the Strategy is inherent to Action 6. Without the Strategy, an equivalent amount of progress would not have been made in climate proofing key EU policies such as agriculture and cohesion. However, it needs to be stressed that part of the responsibility lies with Member States, under the shared management of ESIF.

Action 7 Infrastructure. European Standardisation Organisations reported in the context of this evaluation that, although they had started considering standards, the process would have been much slower and would not have been so coordinated without the Strategy.

Action 8 Insurance and resilient businesses. Various stakeholders from the insurance and risk management industry indicated the importance of integrating insurance in climate risk management. The main benefit of the Strategy is the fact that the Commission has the opportunity to facilitate coordination of this public-private cooperation. Without the Strategy, the benefits of public-private cooperation, such as the consideration of good practices in national insurance schemes and better use of disaster data, would not have been as explicit as they are now.

7.Conclusions

The objective of this evaluation is to examine the actual implementation and performance of the EU adaptation strategy (Strategy) between 2013 and early 2018, and to report to the European Parliament and Council.

The evaluation covered the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value of the Strategy. These criteria were examined in an external study 182 based on available evidence and the information gathered through consultation activities, including an open public consultation. Stakeholders are broadly supportive of EU action in the field of adaptation. They recognised the greatest added value in mainstreaming into other EU policies and in encouraging action at all levels of governance. They also highlighted the need to close knowledge gaps and to better integrate adaptation with climate mitigation and external policy. In general, consultation activities showed no strongly diverging views or conflicting interests between the different categories of stakeholders.

The evaluation concludes that the Strategy remains highly relevant, although recent research has revealed pressing adaptation needs, for example with regard to high-end climate change and the vulnerability of the EU to climate change in third countries (the closure of related knowledge gaps should receive more emphasis in the future). The Strategy is also quite coherent with policies at other levels of governance, although less so as regards international policies. A mix of qualitative and quantitative assessment found that the Strategy was effective, although more work needs to be done to implement and monitor national strategies, promote local action, bridge newly emerging knowledge gaps, complete mainstreaming in EU policy and foster the use of insurance and financial instruments in adaptation. The analysis of effectiveness was also hampered by the fact that the Strategy’s performance indicators focus on processes, no indicators are available to assess its socio-economic impacts, and no such indicators exist currently at EU scale. The Strategy seems efficient, imposing administrative costs only on the Commission. Finally, there is clear added value of the Strategy at EU level.

The Strategy delivered on its objectives, with progress recorded against each of the eight individual actions. In particular:

·The Strategy shifted some political focus towards adaptation issues and the need for prevention and preparedness, and it increased awareness among a broad range of EU, Member State, and sub-national policymakers. As a result, a wider range of stakeholders acknowledges the urgency of adaptation action nowadays.

·The Strategy promoted strong action by Member States and was one of the drivers leading 25 out of 28 Member States to adopt NASs, most of them including good preparatory provisions such as horizontal coordination mechanisms, stakeholder involvement and transboundary cooperation.

·At the local level, the Covenant of Mayors increased urban preparedness, bringing adaptation actions close to the citizens and delivering on the objectives of the Strategy by means of a bottom-up, multilevel governance approach. The increase in the number of cities having effectively reported adaptation strategies/plans within the Covenant has been so far small, but this may be due to the absence (until very recently) of an online reporting platform. Survey-based estimates indicate that, overall, more than one-quarter of EU cities have such a policy document. Extreme weather causes more damage where population and infrastructure are concentrated, and therefore, local authorities remain at the forefront of climate shocks.

·LIFE’s targeted funds acted as an effective catalyst, providing and disseminating solutions and best practices on the ground. Evidence points at the need to increase LIFE resources devoted to adaptation.

·It increased the production and availability of valuable knowledge, in particular as regards high emission scenarios. Climate-ADAPT, in particular, has become the Strategy's vehicle to disseminate information on adaptation to decision-makers at various governance levels and organisations supporting them. This has allowed decision-makers to make use of increasing adaptation knowledge for developing adaptation strategies and actions and to reduce uncertainty, but not to the point of closing all the gaps identified in 2013. Furthermore, as in many other scientific fields, new gaps have emerged. The focus may need to switch from gaps to decision-making processes that integrate uncertainty, such as adaptation pathways. 183 It would be also relevant to reinforce the cooperation between researchers and decision-makers, notably for practical solutions on the ground.

·Mainstreaming of adaptation as part of climate objectives in key EU policies or sectors was generally thorough (the most notable exceptions being the areas of trade and fisheries), including the way to track such progress. This was certainly the case for Disaster Risk Reduction, the European Regional Development Fund, the CF and CAP, even if a complete separation of mitigation and adaptation spending is not possible due to co-benefits and synergies.

·As regards infrastructure, major projects are now required to be climate proof. Further work on preparedness and standards is ongoing, but might not deliver results before 2020.

·There was EU added value in having a Europe-wide policy instrument: equivalent progress would not have been possible in the absence of the Strategy. This was most apparent in the production and dissemination of knowledge and in their integration of adaptation constraints in key EU policies. The evaluation suggests that there might be further EU added value if adaptation is mainstreamed in areas where the EU has exclusive competences, such as trade and fisheries.

·Finally, in terms of internal coherence, evidence suggests that there are synergies between several of the eight actions of the Strategy, even though the Strategy did not expressly seek synergies between its actions.

There are lessons to be drawn from the evaluation with regard to potential gaps in the Strategy or to step up efforts in areas where the Strategy was less successful:

·The focus of the Strategy adopted in 2013 was on the EU, although already in 2010, the adoption of the Cancún adaptation framework 184 foretold the importance that adaptation would gather in the future: in 2015 the Paris agreement enshrined adaptation as a global goal. The possible scope for alignment with international policy developments since 2013 would therefore merit to be examined, as well as the potential implications for the EU of transboundary effects of climate impacts in third countries via migration, trade and financial flows.

·While it succeeded in spreading the adoption of national strategies, there is margin to improve implementation and monitoring, for example by developing meaningful indicators to monitor the socio-economic impacts of national strategies and to assess the value of the prevention and management of risks linked to climate change. This extends also to local level and adaptation strategies in the context of the Covenant of Mayors.

·Progress in the adoption of local adaptation strategies has been slower than expected. Better downscaling of adaptation knowledge might be required, notably on socio-economic impacts and possible responses. In addition, the national context may have an influence, e.g. whether and how national governments make urban adaptation compulsory or not, and the complexity of the inter-linkages between government levels. Where there were binding measures at national level the percentage of local authorities in the EU with a local adaptation strategy was higher.

·As regards mainstreaming, there are opportunities for enhanced action in certain sectors and funds, such as:

oCoastal protection, green infrastructure and ecosystem-based adaptation measures.

oDisaster Risk Reduction, notably on integration of climate change, its impacts and adaptation practices in methodologies and indicators, science/knowledge for risk assessment, metrics and dialogue between practitioners from both fields.

oForeign trade (with a view to tackling possible spillover effects from third countries via supply chain).

oThe EMFF and the ESF.

·Given the private investments required to adapt to climate change, there is a need to involve further business and insurers in view of increasing climate risks. The Strategy may not have been as effective as expected in this field, but a new impetus has been provided by the recent adoption of the Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth, whose effects are not considered in this evaluation.

In conclusion, the Strategy has proved effective in making significant progress towards its objectives up to 2020, while there is still some efforts needed in a few areas.

Annex IProcedural information

1.Lead DG, Decide Planning/CWP references

·Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA)

·2016/CLIMA/011

2.Organisation and timing

The evaluation has been steered by DG Climate Action since 20 July 2016 185 under the scrutiny of an inter-service group comprising of representatives of DG AGRI, DG BUDG, DG COMM, DG DEVCO, DG EAC, DG ECFIN, DG ECHO, EEAS, DG ENER, DG ENV, DG FISMA, DG GROW, DG HOME, JRC, DG MARE, DG MOVE, DG NEAR, DG REGIO, DG RTD, SG, DG SANTE, SJ, DG TAXUD and DG TRADE.

External consultants carried out an evaluation support study between December 2016 and April 2018. 186 The Inter-service Group followed closely the drafting of study in four meetings during 2017 and 2018.

3.Exceptions to the better regulation guidelines

None

4.Evidence, sources and quality

Source of evidence

Evidence for the evaluation support study was gathered through a wide range of data sources:

·Literature review

·A targeted survey (114 responses)

·An open public survey (386 responses)

·Interviews (43 interviews with about 50 stakeholders)

·Workshops (2 workshops)

·4 case studies

Quality of evidence

The evaluation gathered both quantitative and qualitative data from different sources and stakeholders. The results are found robust through the triangulation of different data, but to a varying degree depending on the sources.

The quality of the evidence gathered in the evaluation support study is discussed in Annex XII.

Quality of the evaluation support study

The Inter-service Group endorsed the quality assessment of the final report evaluation support study in its meeting of 17 May 2018. The inter-service group concluded that the report overall complies with the contractual conditions and relevant professional evaluation standards. The following problems were highlighted:

·Minor gaps can be observed, for example the situation on EU funds in 2013 was not covered in the Baseline section of the report.

·The analysis sometimes relies on views from individual stakeholders, but given that the consultation solicited only limited feedback on certain topics not well covered by literature, this was unavoidable. The report remains transparent on the strength on the evidence.

·It would have been preferable to further improve the linkages between the conclusions and the recommendations.

·In spite of repeated flagging of the problem, the report is still repetitive in many cases. Also, more information could have been left for the appendices.

The identified issues were tackled in this SWD by eliminating repetitions and superfluous details from the text and adding analysis done internally by the Commission services, for example on modelling of future climate impacts.

In addition, the following changes in content were implemented compared to the study:

·The background study concluded that there have been no activities under Action 8 (adaptation for insurance and businesses) apart from a Commission study on the topic of insurance. This was a difficult action to evaluate as unlike other actions, it did not have specific operational objectives established in the impact assessment. However, internal follow-up research in the Commission services revealed there were also some other activities, and most recently the Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth in March 2018, when contractors could no longer consider its analysis in the background report. This is reflected in the discussion of Action 8 in Chapter 4 on baseline, implementation and state of play.

·The background study acknowledged that mainstreaming of adaptation in the common fisheries policy had been more limited than in other flagship policies such as agriculture and cohesion, but did not analyse the possible reasons, consequences and future action further. The SWD provided this analysis in section 6.2.3.

5.Consultation of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board

The initial draft of the evaluation was submitted to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board on 30 May 2018. Previously an informal consultation of the Board had taken place on 2 May 2018. The Board issued a quality checklist on 22 June and held its scrutiny meeting on 27 June 2018. They issued a positive opinion with comments on 29 June. The table below presents how the Board’s comments were addressed in the evaluation.

In the first part of the table, paragraphs from the Board opinion and the quality checklist box entries covering the same issues are grouped together, because actions were taken that simultaneously respond to them. In the second half of the table, the remaining checklist box entries are addressed in their original order.

Annex IIStakeholder consultation

1.Objectives of the consultation

The current EU Adaptation Strategy (the Strategy) was published in April 2013 in response to the climate risks that Europe is and will increasingly face. The Strategy committed the Commission to report to the European Parliament and the Council on the state of its implementation. The evaluation was needed in order to comply with this requirement and assess the progress made since 2013.

As indicated in the Consultation Strategy and in line with the Better Regulation Guidelines, the objective of the Stakeholder Consultation in relation to the EU Adaptation Strategy evaluation is to draw upon existing evidence to deliver a high quality and credible evaluation study by allowing interested parties to provide their feedback and experiences of implementing the Strategy thus far. This includes identifying specific case studies or further evidence, lessons learned, knowledge, financing and capacity gaps, obstacles and factors of success, and suggestions for improvement.

2.Consultation activities and methodology

2.1.Activities

As defined in the Consultation Strategy, a combination of in-depth surveys, interviews of interested stakeholders, an open public consultation and stakeholder workshops have been used to gather evidence.

a)Stakeholder surveys – The targeted stakeholder survey ran from July to August 2017. It was available in English and comprised multiple choice and free text questions. Survey invitations were sent to 370 stakeholders involved, directly or indirectly, in the implementation of the Strategy. In addition, the invitation was sent to all registrants for the 3rd European Climate Change Adaptation Conference, held in Glasgow (850 attendees). The structure of the questionnaire allowed the participants to focus on the Actions under the Strategy that were of primary interest to them.

b)Stakeholder interviews – 43 interviews were held with about 50 stakeholders who had been actively involved in different aspects of the implementation of the Strategy. 35 of the interviews covered the 8 Actions with questions relating to the five evaluation criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value. Respondents could choose to respond on one or on more actions and could choose the questions on which they wished to focus. A further 8 interviews contributed to the development of four case studies on:

·Fire preparedness and the impact of climate change

·Spillover effects from climate change impacts occurring outside the EU

·The Danube macro-regional strategy (EUSDR) and its contribution to action at Member State level

·Adaptation of infrastructure in the energy sector.

c)Open Public Consultation – An open public consultation was available from 7th December 2017 to 1st March 2018 (12 weeks) on DG CLIMA's website 187 . Initial multiple choice questions were for all respondents including private individuals. Sections with multiple choice questions on interim conclusions from the study in support of the evaluation 188 were available to expert stakeholders. All respondents could add comments in a free text field and upload a document or position paper.

d)Stakeholder workshop – Two workshops were organised to present the evaluation and gather new evidence to elicit further feedback on draft conclusions.

·5 April 2017 – Over 90 stakeholders participated. It served to briefly present the Strategy and obtain feedback on its implementation and to guide the further development of the evaluation.

·23 January 2018 – To present and discuss interim conclusions and recommendations from the study. This was previously foreseen for October 2017, but it was postponed in order to discuss the preliminary results of the evaluation. Around 120 stakeholders participated in this second event.

2.2.Stakeholder groups participating

In the context of the Strategy evaluation, a broad scope for the stakeholder consultation was necessary to ensure that all relevant and interested stakeholders had the opportunity to express their opinions and to contribute to the evaluation.

Six groups of stakeholders were identified in the mapping of the Consultation Strategy, which were used throughout the consultation activities in order to maintain a balance between different stakeholders. The figures below show the number of participants by consultation activity and by stakeholder type.  189  

Figure II-1. Number of respondents by consultation activity

Source: External Support evaluation study

Figure II-2. Participants by stakeholder type for three consultation activities

Source: Own analysis of participation by consultation activity. Note that, in addition, 217 private individuals responded to the open public consultation.

Despite the fact that interviews were conducted with all types of stakeholders, the majority of them were from the National government/Administration and EU institutions due to the technical nature of the interviews and the necessity to obtain reliable evidence to proceed with sections related to efficiency and effectiveness.

In the case of the Open Public Consultation, the large majority of stakeholders (56%) were private individuals and the three largest countries by representation of respondents were Belgium (17%), Spain (14%) and France (10%).

Besides the balance between the interests of different stakeholders, the consultation aimed at ensuring a geographical balance by providing opportunities to all stakeholders across Europe to participate in the consultation activities.

Figure II-3. Participants by Member State for three consultation activities

Source: Own analysis of participation by consultation activity. Note that the 15 EU interviews are not ascribed to a Member State – the remaining 28 are in this figure

2.3.Methodology

The Open Public Consultation was published in 23 languages in EU Survey, an online survey-management system, during 12 weeks and actively advertised in the DG CLIMA's website and social networks of the Commission.

Quantitative information was collected and analysed using spreadsheets and the results were divided by stakeholder in order to identify coincidences and contradictions between different groups. For the Open Public Consultation, comparisons were made between groups with 20 or more responses – National Governments/ Administrations, private sector, university or research organisations, and NGOs. One further group combined the response from regional governments/ administrations and from local authorities to give a sub-national group (as foreseen in the Better Regulation Guidelines).

Qualitative information was received from: the stakeholder workshops, interviews, the many free text responses to the targeted stakeholder survey, the open text response to the open public consultation and the papers uploaded for the targeted stakeholder survey and open public consultation (analysed in the report).

The information collected was analysed according to the five evaluation criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value. Moreover, responses were further assessed by Strategy Objective / Action and by stakeholder type.

3.Results

3.1.Targeted Stakeholder Survey

In total, 114 stakeholders responded to the survey questionnaire of which 54 respondents only indicated their organisational type and their country, which left 60 responses to analyse. The questions and responses were organised by Action and focused on the effectiveness, coherence and efficiency criteria.

Figure II-4. Number of respondents of the Targeted Stakeholder Survey from each organisational type

On effectiveness, a total of 14 respondents to the targeted stakeholder survey provided specific examples of barriers to EU activities promoting adaptation in key vulnerable sectors (Agriculture, Forestry, Energy, Transport, Construction, Fisheries). Overarching barriers that some respondents identified as applying to several sectors include:

The majority of stakeholders considered that the Strategy had a clear added value since they affirmed that in the absence of the Strategy the same level of progress could not have been achieved, mainly for actions 3 to 6. For the rest, only around 20-40 stakeholders responded per action. This gives small numbers for each stakeholder group, and no major difference between their views was discerned.

3.2.Stakeholder interviews

Interviews provided evidence on all evaluation criteria. All types of stakeholder are represented in the interviews, nevertheless the majority of stakeholders came from public institutions (EU, Member State or sub-national).

Figure II-5. Number of respondents of the Targeted Stakeholder Survey from each organisation type

On relevance, the stakeholder interviews highlighted that there is a need to close new knowledge gaps. Examples of such gaps highlighted by stakeholders included: adaptation in mountainous areas, climate impacts outside the EU that have implications for the EU, long-term lack of water resources and coastal issues, biodiversity, and high-end climate change (i.e. greater than 2ºC). The latter was also reflected by responses to the public consultation (90% of 158 respondents agreed or strongly agreed that there is a need to address the impact of high-end climate change).

On effectiveness, the interviews provided evidence that the Strategy played a role in ensuring increased political salience of the need for Member States to adopt strategies and plans where they were not already in place. The interviewees also suggested that the use of the adaptation ex ante conditionalities for European Structural and Investment Funds programmes was an effective mechanism for ensuring Member States adopted NASs.

Responses to interviews and the targeted stakeholder survey provided additional evidence on the adequacy of resources and how proportionate they were for each of the eight actions. Overall, numerous stakeholders highlighted the cross-cutting nature of adaptation and, thus, agreed that mainstreaming of adaptation objectives into sectoral policies is a necessity. A recurring policy area where coherence with adaptation was seen as essential is disaster risk reduction.

Recommendations included the potential value of enhanced discussion on regional-level adaptation challenges facing neighbouring Member States.

Eight further interviews were conducted to develop the 4 case studies listed in section 2.1.

3.3.Open Public Consultation

The survey was split between part 1 and parts 2-4, with part 1 targeted to all citizens and parts 2-4 targeted to those with professional experience with adaptation. There were in total 386 responses. Parts 2-4 were answered by 159 respondents (41% of the total).

The respondents had the opportunity to explain their experience with events attributed to climate change, and they identified a total of 1 651 events, the majority related to abnormally warm overall temperatures. Regarding knowledge of the EU’s strategy on adaptation to climate change, most respondents considered they had a good (32%) or limited (30%) knowledge. Only 12% of the stakeholders thought that they had a very good knowledge of the strategy and 10% had never heard of it. The knowledge was significant regarding programmes dealing with adaptation action, where 67% of stakeholders knew about H2020.

The relevance of EU-level action was found significant with 93% of respondents believing that it is necessary to combat adaptation to climate change. The responses on the generic aspects of Adaptation were generally supportive. The strongest agreement was found for the conclusions “Adaptation action is needed at all governance levels” and “The EU needs to encourage adaptation action by Member States”.

The respondents found the Strategy relevant; since they see the need of further action to address remaining knowledge gaps and to align EU adaptation policy with international developments.

Figure II-6 Responses in the open public consultation to interim conclusions that relate to relevance of the EU Adaptation Strategy

On effectiveness, there was disagreement between stakeholder's results: regional and national authorities were more positive considering aspects as adaptation mainstreaming than the overall average.

Overall, on coherence, respondents replied positively to the conclusions. Nevertheless, stakeholders considered that there was still a need to better integrate adaptation concerns into the climate mitigation policy or the EU external policy areas. NGOs and Private Sector disagreed more compared to public authorities on the consideration that ‘progress has been made in integrating adaptation concerns into a wide range of EU policy areas’.

The respondents almost exclusively agreed with the conclusions about EU added-value. This highlights that many believe in the importance of the Strategy and EU action for adaptation to climate action. Furthermore, most stakeholders more strongly agreed that the greatest value of EU action is through mainstreaming adaptation into its own policies.

Finally, out of the 386 stakeholders involved in the public consultation, 239 submitted an answer to the open question and 27 position papers were received. An extensive summary can be found in appendix 2E of the external support study. 191 The position papers were analysed and were taken into account during the evaluation as part of the evidence.

3.4.Stakeholder Workshops

The first workshop (5th April 2017) provided significant input on the three priorities identified in the 2013 Strategy. There was agreement on:

·The need for research to be made available in forms that decision-makers could use.

·The need for better understanding of social and cultural barriers to adaptation.

The effectiveness and coherence of the evaluation were the main elements discussed throughout the workshop: it was considered that the Strategy promoted action from some Members States (not all) and contributed to promote coherence in action.

The main findings of the evaluation were presented in the second workshop (23rd January 2018). The recommendations of the external support study were supported by the large majority of members who assisted in the workshop, except on the alignment with International obligations under the Paris Agreement and its alignment with the Global Stocktake in 2023 (this recommendation was reconsidered in the final study). This second stakeholder workshop was useful to promote participation in the parallel Open Public Consultation. There were no major contradictions between the results provided by the workshop and the rest of the consultation activities.

4.Identified campaigns and ad-hoc contributions

No campaigns have been identified in the context of the Open Public Consultation.

Several documents and position papers were provided in association with the open public consultation. These were noted in the relevant consultation reports (appendix 2E of the external support study) and included as part of the evidence base for this work. Nevertheless no ad-hoc documents were received outside the consultation activities.

5.Feedback from the roadmap

There was no feedback received on the roadmap of the evaluation. Therefore, there were no significant changes applied to the consultation activities in comparison with the original roadmap.

In summary, information from the consultation forms a major part of the evidence considered in the evaluation. Evidence is compared with that from other strands of the consultation and also with results of the literature review to identify the overall level of agreement or divergence of the evidence. The results of the open public consultation, in particular, provide sufficient responses from key groups of stakeholders to consider whether there is agreement or divergence by stakeholder type.

Annex IIIAcronyms

Annex IVList of SWDs supporting the Strategy Communication in 2013

The documents provide further information on certain elements of the Strategy and respond to some specific commitments made in the Strategy, e.g. to prepare guidelines on developing adaptation strategies. The supporting documents are:

·Impact Assessment of the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change

·SWDs on

oClimate change adaptation, coastal and marine issues

oAdaptation to climate change impacts on human, animal and plant health

oAdapting infrastructure to climate change

oClimate change, environmental degradation, and migration

oTechnical guidance on integrating climate change adaptation in programmes and investments of Cohesion Policy

oPrinciples and recommendations for integrating climate change adaptation considerations under the 2014-2020 rural development programmes

oGuidelines on developing adaptation strategies.

In addition, a Green Paper on the insurance of natural and man-made disasters was launched in parallel with the Strategy. The Green Paper sets out the potential for the European Union to facilitate and support the development of markets for disaster risk insurance.

The EU Adaptation Strategy package also included the ‘Non-paper Guidelines for Project Managers: Making vulnerable investments climate resilient’.

Annex V Intervention logic of the EU’s Adaptation Strategy (reconstructed)

Annex VIOperational objectives and performance indicators in the 2013 impact assessment

The Strategy did not commit to achieving the operational objectives listed in the impact assessment and did not mention the related performance indicators. Furthermore, it listed the specific objectives in a different order and numbering than the Impact Assessment. In order to be in line with the Strategy’s numbering of the specific objectives, the operational objectives are renumbered in the list below. Their original number in the Impact Assessment is shown in parenthesis.

Objective 1: Increasing the resilience of the EU territory 192

Operational Objective 1a (2a): by 2017, all Member States have adopted adaptation strategies, complemented by regional or local adaptation strategies, where appropriate

oNumber of NASs and action plans and national climate change risk assessments

oNumber and amount of LIFE grants used for experience transfer 193

Operational Objective 1b (2b): by 2020, cities of more than 150 000 inhabitants have adopted an adaptation strategy

oNumber and amount of LIFE grants used for lighthouse projects 194 on adaptation

oCovenant of Mayors (ongoing): number of cities pledging to develop an adaptation strategy

oNumber of cities of more than 150 000 inhabitants in vulnerable areas with an adaptation strategy

Objective 2: Better informed decision making

195 Operational Objective 2a (1a): by 2020, priority knowledge gaps identified in 2013 have been closed

oList of knowledge gaps now, in 2017, and in 2020

oNumber of H2020 and JRC research projects dealing with adaptation and associated budget allocated

Operational Objective 2b (1b): by 2020, communication tools allow for available information on climate change adaptation to be more easily accessible for decision-makers, including Member States, local authorities and firms

oNumber of visitors to Climate-ADAPT, pages most visited, number of registered users, assessment of the content, databases and metadata

oNumber of conferences, workshops, adaptation events registered in Climate-ADAPT

Objective 3: Increasing the resilience of key vulnerable sectors 196

Operational Objective 3a: by 2020, adaptation considerations have been mainstreamed in a consistent and comprehensive way in key EU policies

oList of policies and legal acts where adaptation has been mainstreamed

oAdaptation activities by private organisations as reported in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) surveys

Operational Objective 3b: by 2020, new major infrastructure investments are climate-proofed

oAmount of adaptation infrastructure investments (co-)financed by EU funds and/or public financial institutions

oProgress on the mapping exercise by CEN-CENELEC 197 .

Annex VIIInputs, activities and outputs related to the 8 actions of the Strategy 

Action 1: Encourage all Member States to adopt comprehensive adaptation strategies

This action encourages all Member States to adopt comprehensive adaptation strategies. Encouragement has been provided through the following activities, and associated outputs:

·Provision of guidelines to help Member States formulate adaptation strategies, which were published alongside the Communication

·Development of an ‘adaptation preparedness scoreboard’, which identifies key indicators for measuring Member States’ level of readiness.

·A commitment was also made that, in 2017, the Commission would assess action being taken in the Member States and if progress is deemed insufficient, the Commission would consider proposing a legally-binding instrument.

It was expected, when the Strategy was prepared, that the encouragement provided by the Commission in relation to Action 1 would contribute towards all Member States adopting an adaptation strategy, complemented by regional and local adaptation strategies, by 2017.

Action 2: Provide LIFE funding to support capacity building and step up adaptation action in Europe (2013-2020).

Action 2 concerns the creation of the Climate Action sub-programme under the 2014-2020 LIFE funding programme for the environment. The sub-programme covers climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and climate governance and information. Through the creation of the Climate Action sub-programme, the aim was to substantially increase the LIFE funds available to combat climate change.

It was expected when the Strategy was prepared that additional funding would be directed towards climate adaptation projects in comparison to the situation without the Strategy. It was also expected that this funding would lead to better informed decision-making via the identification and implementation of relevant cross-sectoral and cross-border lighthouse projects. Other expected outcomes included the strengthening of existing networks and collaborations between Member States and associated countries and other third countries.

Action 3: Introduce adaptation in the Covenant of Mayors framework

Action 3 focuses on cities and urban areas, as they have an important role in low-carbon and climate-resilient development across Europe. The action concerns the support provided by the Commission to the launch of Mayors Adapt (the Covenant of Mayors Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change), through which local authorities can make a voluntary commitment to adopt local adaptation strategies and awareness-raising activities. The initiative was launched by the Commission in March 2014.

It was expected, at the time the Strategy was prepared, that the encouragement provided by the Commission in relation to this action would contribute towards all cities of more than 150 000 inhabitants adopting an adaptation strategy, by 2020.

Action 4: Bridge the knowledge gap

Action 4 concerns two activities undertaken by the Commission:

·To work further with Member States and stakeholders to refine the adaptation knowledge gaps identified in the Strategy and identify relevant tools and methodologies to address them. The findings were to be fed into the programming of H2020, the EU’s 2014-2020 framework programme for research and innovation, and were to address the need for better interfaces between science, policy making and business

·To promote EU-wide vulnerability assessments considering, inter alia, the cross-sectoral EU overview of natural and manmade risks that the Commission was to produce in 2013. The Commission was, in particular, to support the JRC to undertake a comprehensive review of what global climate change will mean for the EU.

It was expected, at the time when the Strategy was prepared, that the activities led by the Commission in relation to this action would contribute towards filling the priority knowledge gaps identified in 2013 by 2020.

Action 5: Climate-ADAPT website

Action 5 concerns activities by the Commission and EEA to further develop Climate-ADAPT as the ‘one-stop shop’ for adaptation information in Europe. This includes improving access to information and developing interaction between Climate-ADAPT and other relevant platforms, such as national and local adaptation portals (2013/2014).

Climate-ADAPT started in 2012. It aimed to facilitate collection and dissemination of information to assist effective uptake by decision makers and to contribute to more coordination between sectoral policies and between institutional levels. Climate-ADAPT has since evolved into an information portal to support Europe in adapting to climate change, co-managed by the EEA and DG CLIMA. It provides information on adaptation strategies, case studies and specifically designed tools that support adaptation planning and decision making.

As part of the further development of Climate-ADAPT, the Strategy describes how special attention will be given to cost-benefit assessments of different policy experiences and to innovative funding, through closer interaction with regional and local authorities and financial institutions. The Strategy also indicates that work on the inclusion of the future Copernicus climate services (previously known as GMES – Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) will start in 2014.

It was expected, at the time the Strategy was prepared, that the further development of Climate-ADAPT would allow available information on climate change adaptation to be more easily accessible for decision-makers, by 2020. It was also expected that the further development of Climate-ADAPT, linking in with other relevant platforms and developing associated guidance, would result in avoided costs for both the EEA and other database managers for data integration into Climate-ADAPT. This was also expected to reduce costs for end-users to compile and process data (the ‘one-stop-shop’ principle). Another expectation was that the inclusion of the Copernicus Climate Service in Climate-ADAPT would allow a better assessment of local and sectoral vulnerabilities and, therefore, provide additional data for proper climate risk assessments. Furthermore, it was expected that by supporting the exchange of information between science and policy, Climate-ADAPT would encourage and stimulate new research and development, as well as innovation, in the field of climate change adaptation across a broad spectrum of sectors in the EU as well internationally. 

Action 6: Facilitate the climate-proofing of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Cohesion Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy

Action 6 focuses on key EU financial instruments and policy areas, which cover: the CAP, delivered through the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and the EAFRD; Cohesion Policy, which is delivered through the ERDF, the ESF and the CF; and the CFP. These instruments are jointly managed 198 by the Commission with the Member States. They involve significant additional financial contributions from national budgets and an important role for Member States in spending the funds on the ground once the framework is decided with the Commission.

The Strategy committed the Commission to provide guidance on how to further integrate adaptation into the CAP, Cohesion Policy and the CFP. This guidance was published alongside the Commission’s Communication on the Strategy. The guidance was designed for managing authorities and other stakeholders involved in programme design, development and implementation during the 2014-2020 budget period.

This action was to be led by the Commission with the aim of contributing towards the comprehensive and consistent mainstreaming of adaptation in EU policies by 2020.

Action 7: Ensuring more resilient infrastructure

Action 7 concerns a three-pronged approach to ensure the development of more climate resilient infrastructure and commits the Commission to the following activities:

To launch a mandate for European standardisation organisations to start mapping industry-relevant standards in the area of energy, transport and buildings and to identify standards that need to be revised to achieve better inclusion of adaptation considerations.

To provide guidelines to help project developers working on infrastructure and physical assets to climate-proof vulnerable investments. These guidelines were launched alongside the Strategy.

To explore the need for additional guidance on ecosystem-based adaptation for authorities and decision makers, civil society, private business and conservation practitioners.

It was expected when the Strategy was prepared that that the activities led by the Commission in relation to Action 7 would help to ensure that major infrastructure investments are climate-proofed by 2020.

Action 8: Promote insurance and other financial products for resilient investment and business decisions

This action concerns the activities to be undertaken by the Commission, as part of the Strategy, to promote insurance and other financial products for resilient investments and business decisions.

In relation to insurance, the Commission’s ‘Green Paper on the Insurance of Natural and Man-made Disasters’, adopted as part of the Strategy’s package, was a first step towards encouraging insurers to improve how they help to manage climate change risks.

In relation to other financial products, the Strategy envisaged further engagement with commercial banks on adaptation financing and exploring market-based approaches, such as payments for ecosystem services.

No clear expectations were stated when the Strategy was prepared as to how the market for insurance and other financial products for resilient investment would develop as a result of the above activities. However, it is implicit that these activities would enhance the development of the market.

Annex VIIIComplementary information on the initiatives under the Strategy

1.LIFE

As of April 2018, there are at least 60 ongoing adaptation-related LIFE projects targeting implementation across a combined area of the size of Germany (more than 350 000 km2). Although some participants in the public consultation meeting for this evaluation expressed concern that geographical coverage of LIFE projects since 2014 has been uneven, the LIFE mid-term evaluation notes that adaptation-related projects have a wide geographical coverage: Spain, Italy, Greece, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Estonia. A total of 44 of ongoing (April 2018) projects under the LIFE Climate Action sub-programme are categorised to climate change adaptation in the LIFE projects database. 199 Summary details of these 44 projects are provided in the table below. There are also approximately 17 adaptation-related projects in other programme strands, such as nature, environment resource efficiency and climate change mitigation, with a total value of approximately 43 million EUR 200 .

Table VIII-1: Breakdown of LIFE projects per theme

The new LIFE programme includes ‘integrated projects’ within the action grants, which are designed to operate at a large geographic scale and “function as multi-purpose delivery mechanisms (e.g. creating environmental benefits and capacity-building) and are expected to exploit synergies and ensure consistency between various funding sources of the EU”. 202 Climate change adaptation is one of the targeted themes for integrated projects, which are intended as a vehicle for implementation of adaptation strategies and action plans. To date, two adaptation-related integrated projects have been funded in Denmark and Spain.  203  

In addition to integrated projects, LIFE has also directly supported other adaptation actions under the Strategy. For example, since 2014, the programme has supported eleven urban adaptation projects (Table VIII-1, above), six of which (total budget EUR 15.4 million) are helping to implement Mayors Adapt and Covenant of Mayors commitments. An innovative financial instrument, the Natural Capital Financing Facility (NCFF), was introduced to the LIFE programme in 2015 (Multiannual Work Programme 2014 – 2017) and is implemented by the EIB. The NCFF provides financing (loan or equity) and technical assistance for natural capital projects that can generate revenues or save costs while delivering on biodiversity and climate adaptation objectives 204 . The EIB aims at an investment of 100 to 125 million EUR, with the EU contribution of 50 million EUR for guarantees and 10 million EUR for the support facility. At the moment, two out of the three ongoing projects are related to climate adaptation with a total estimated investment of 56.6 million euros, of which the EIB investment is 17.5 million EUR. The Commission contributes with 8.7 million EUR for guarantees and technical support for the two operations.

2.Covenant of Mayors

Urban areas are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, due to the often increasing concentration of population and infrastructure, the ageing population as well as the high proportion of artificial surfaces (which increases the risks of floods and heat waves). The increasing frequency of extreme weather events (such as floods or heat waves) can have dramatic economic and social consequences for our cities.

In order to address this challenge, Mayors Adapt (the Covenant of Mayors Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change) 205 was launched by the Commission in March 2014, as a flagship programme to promote and facilitate urban adaptation planning. Mayors Adapt drew on experience and expertise developed under the 2012-2013 ‘EU Cities Adapt’ pilot project.

In October 2015, Mayors Adapt and the Covenant of Mayors initiatives were merged, and the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (Covenant) was officially launched, introducing an integrated approach on mitigation and adaptation and a robust methodology to assess the risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change and track effectiveness of adaptation action.

Signatories to the Covenant voluntarily commit to develop a climate vulnerability and risk assessment and an action plan for targeted adaptation options within two years of signing up to the initiative. This political commitment includes reporting every two years on the implementation progress of their plans.

Between 2013 206 and 2018, the Commission implemented and funded the Covenant of Mayors Office (for the amount of funding, please refer to section 11 in this Annex). These two actors inform, mobilise and support local authorities in taking climate mitigation and adaptation action. The Commission and the Covenant Office raise awareness -including on access to financial opportunities-, encourage political commitment from local authorities to take action, promote their local commitments and actions via the Covenant’s communication channels, assist Covenant signatories with any questions via a helpdesk, technical guidance, including for monitoring and reporting, capacity-building events and webinars, facilitates peer-to-peer networks and exchange of experiences and good practices, implement a city twinning programme, online discussion forums, and networking events. The Commission and the Covenant Office also engage other governance levels and stakeholders (States, regions, provinces, national / thematic agencies or organisations, etc.) and co-ordinate work with third parties. The Commission’s JRC cooperates with the Office to provide comprehensive technical guidelines, templates and feedback to local authorities for the preparation, implementation and monitoring 207 of the latter's commitments.

More specifically on facilitating access to funding, this has been one of the key priorities of the Covenant.  208 Information on funding opportunities is made available on a regular basis through various means, such as website news items, capacity building events, webinars, Covenant Investment Forums, as well as the informative material, such as the Quick reference guide on financing opportunities (March 2016) 209 , leaflets, fact sheets and most recently the Interactive funding guide available in 23 EU languages since March 2018.  210  The pool of financial experts is established to generate more knowledge on innovative financing opportunities and projects to be available for local authorities.

The Commission mobilises financial and political support for signatories at EU level. Indeed, regarding financing, part of the EU funds and financial instruments (i.e. European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), European Structural and Investment Funds, Urban Innovative Actions (UIA), URBACT, LIFE, LIFE Natural Capital Financing Facility, and H2020 support the implementation of the commitments from Covenant signatories on climate change adaptation. The Commission also contributes to providing advice and technical assistance in view of financing local climate change adaptation projects, e.g. through the Urban Investments and Advisory Platform new dedicated urban investment advisory platform and the Joint Assistance to Support Projects in European Regions (JASPERS). 211  

Regarding political support for signatories at EU level, the Commission contributes to this through, for instance, its high-level representatives publicly encouraging and supporting local and Covenant signatories' climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments and actions, regularly meeting the EU Covenant Board (representing the Covenant community) as well as cities' and regions' representatives, and participating in conferences for local authorities organised or not by the Commission (e.g. the Covenant high-level Ceremony of 22/02/2018 212 ), the Commission supporting the Urban Agenda for the EU including the climate change adaptation theme, and the Commission supporting the creation of the EUROPA's Cities topic one-stop shop webpage including the adaptation theme 213 .

Outputs produced by the initiative and shared by signatories are disseminated more widely via the Covenant of Mayors website 214 and the Climate-ADAPT platform.

By 22 December 2017, within the Covenant of Mayors initiative, 9 264 signatories (local authorities) from 53 countries (including 28 EU Member States), covering 252 million inhabitants, had committed to the Covenant of Mayors (mitigation and/or adaptation).

From these local authorities, since the launch of Mayors Adapt in March 2014 and by 30 April 2018, 1076 signatories from 25 EU Member States, covering around 60 million inhabitants, had committed to conduct vulnerability and risk assessments, and develop, implement and report on adaptation plans. Out of these signatories, 21 (2%) had submitted a full local adaptation action plan (i.e. including a strategy and a climate risk and vulnerability assessment). There has been linear progression since 2014 in the number of signatories and submitted adaptation plans. 215 At the moment of writing this document, the number of submitted full adaptation strategies is low due to the fact that the Covenant online reporting platform for adaptation is not yet fully ready. Once this online reporting platform will be officially launched, we can expect an increase of submissions of local adaptation plans, which may well mean estimates based on current trends are overly pessimistic.

A 2017 survey of just above 500 EU municipalities also found that 28% of municipalities had a climate adaptation action plan and of those that did not, only 42% intended to introduce one in an undetermined future (the remaining 17% did not intend to introduce one and 42% did not know). 216 A 2018 analysis of the local climate plans of 885 representative cities of EU-28 (both Covenant cities and non-Covenant cities) similarly concluded that about 26% of EU cities had adopted adaptation plans. 217 It suggested "that, in countries where autonomous local climate [mitigation and/or adaptation] plans are rare and cities are not required by national legislation to develop plans, such as Cyprus, Slovenia, Latvia, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Malta, but also Portugal […], Romania […] and Spain […], international networks such as the Covenant of Mayors raise the awareness, build the capacity and, often through EU-funded projects, provide the expertise and the funding necessary to develop local climate plans." 11% of the cities of the analysis' sample have an adaptation commitment within the Covenant.

A survey 218 conducted by the Covenant Office in early 2017 that consulted municipalities, provinces, regions and national ministries identified barriers to city-level action:

·Cities are less aware and less equipped for climate change adaptation than climate change mitigation. Among the three pillars of the Covenant of Mayors, the area where respondents from cities declare that they need the most support is climate adaptation (45.1%), followed by climate mitigation (37.0%) and access to energy (17.9%);

·Access to financial resources remains the greatest barrier to climate action: scarcity of financial resources appears as a central issue for 84% of municipalities and for almost 55% of provinces, regions and national ministries. Cities need in particular specific support regarding access to European Structural Investment Funds, and the EU funding programmes such as LIFE, Urban Innovative Actions and URBACT;

·A lack of technical expertise and political support were the next most prevalent barriers for cities: assistance is needed for both planning and implementation of climate action, including designing an integrated approach to mitigation and adaptation. 55.8% of municipalities, and 73.4% of provinces, regions and national ministries indicate strong needs for designing an integrated approach for mitigation and adaptation.

Based on the identified needs, the Covenant Office has developed a capacity building strategy and work plan that has translated these findings into concrete actions, such as capacity-building and awareness-raising workshops, webinars, city twinnings, and the interactive funding guide, 219 all tailored to the identified needs.

Building on the success of the EU Covenant and its gradual extension to EU’s neighbourhood, Africa, Americas and Asia based on financial support from the European Commission, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy 220 was officially launched in 2017 bringing together the Compact of Mayors 221 and the Covenant of Mayors. It offers a worldwide multi-stakeholder alliance of cities committed to climate and energy action, with the support of founding partners, in particular city networks, and through several regional secretariats, supported by the European Union, that deliver technological and methodological support.

3.Monitoring and evaluation on adaptation action at EU and Member State level

The following can be observed about EU- and Member State-level efforts in developing monitoring and evaluation of adaptation action.

EU:

·Climate vulnerabilities (and logically the appropriateness of adaptation action) are difficult to compare between EU Member States due to local specificities.

·There was a clear role foreseen for the Commission to develop an EU-level adaptation preparedness scoreboard (Action 1)

·The Structural Funds under the 2014-2020 MFF already include indicators on the number of people protected from floods and forest fires, however too few projects have been fully implemented yet to draw meaningful conclusions on impacts.

·In addition, the mainstreaming efforts under the Strategy have enabled the inclusion of much improved indicators in the recent MFF proposals, e.g. the CAP proposal.

§The current 2014-2020 CAP includes measures to support climate adaptation. Measures are chosen in support of priorities and focus areas. There is, however, no adaptation-specific priority or focus area. 222 This created both a difficulty in clearly identifying and tracking adaptation action.

§The proposed future CAP now includes a specific objective, as well as impact and result indicators that are directly and exclusively related to adaptation.

§They will help ensure consistent monitoring and reporting of climate adaptation efforts in agriculture across Member States, while taking into account national specificities.

Member State:

·The Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (outside the framework of the Strategy) requires Member States to report to the Commission on their adaptation activities, without setting a mandatory format for such reporting. The reporting is published on the Climate-ADAPT platform managed by the EEA.

·The Commission guidelines on Member State strategies state that the NASs should also include monitoring and evaluation tools at national level.

·Whereas all NASs do foresee such monitoring and evaluation tools, Member States are monitoring and evaluating their strategies to a varying degree, depending on where they are in the adaptation policy cycle.

oFor example, Germany will complete the evaluation of their 2008 strategy in 2019.

oIn the case of the Netherlands, the 2007 NAS was evaluated in 2012, which led to the conclusion that the 2007 NAS did not address all relevant implications of climate change. This in turn contributed to the conception of the Dutch NAS 2016.

oNational Adaptation Plans (NAPs) implementing the strategies add a further layer of complexity to monitoring.

·Further improvement and sharing lessons learnt is probably possible. The EEA will publish a paper in 2018 and a full report in 2019 or 20 on how evaluation processes can improve adaptation practices at country-level.

oThis is a learning and dissemination exercise looking at five countries which have used evaluation indicators (further countries have expressed interest in joining the exercise).

oThe report also looks into links between indicators at national level and the relevant indicator developments under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.

oIt will also examine how data collected by EUROSTAT can be used for different adaptation purposes.

In the future, the reporting requirements under the Monitoring Mechanism Regulation will be replaced by the provisions of the recently adopted Energy Union Governance Regulation. 223 The role of the adaptation preparedness scoreboard also needs to be re-defined in this new context. This should be an occasion to enhance and further harmonise the monitoring and evaluation framework for adaptation policy at EU and national level.

4.Bridging the knowledge gaps

Four knowledge gaps were identified in the Strategy 224 :

·Information on projected costs and benefits of impacts and adaptation

·Regional and local-level analyses and risk assessments

·Frameworks, models and tools to support decision making within uncertainty and to assess the effectiveness of adaptation measures

·Monitoring and evaluation of past adaptation efforts

The evaluation assessed how much effort was put into each broad knowledge domain and where possible, how much financial input was invested in it. To assess which sectors of society were assisted with knowledge production, all research items were ascribed to sectors (e.g. water, nature, health etc.). From several studies on remaining knowledge gaps, the evaluation then inferred if the effort for each domain so far is perceived as sufficient; and if new knowledge domains have emerged for society to be able to move towards adaptation action.

As means for addressing the knowledge gaps, the Strategy indicated H2020 and the JRC, the latter especially, would provide a comprehensive EU-wide vulnerability assessment. The ‘Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2014-15’ was adopted in December 2013 to promote EU-wide vulnerability assessments, considering, inter alia, the cross-sectoral EU overview of natural and manmade risks that the Commission produced in 2013. The H2020 work programmes 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 explicitly mention the Strategy.

In close collaboration with the European Environmental Information and Observation Network (Eionet) and its 33 member countries, the EEA gathers data and produces assessments on a range of topics related to the environment 225 . More specifically EEA supports and informs policy development and implementation in the area of climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation by means of data, information/indicators, and assessments 226 . In these activities EEA is supported by the European Topic Centre on Climate Change Adaptation (ETC/CCA), funded by EEA 227 .

The EEA report on 'Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016' 228 provides an overview as well as valuable analysis of knowledge gaps remaining in 2018, which have been mapped against the knowledge gaps identified in the Strategy. This analysis was based on a range of sources (including IPCC, JPI and EU projects), but it was not fully comprehensive.

A study assessing available knowledge in three thematic areas was also completed for the Commission in 2017 (vulnerability assessment, ecosystem-based adaptation, infrastructure adaptation). 229 Since 2011 the JRC has been supporting the European Commission in analysing the socio-economic costs and benefits of climate change and adaptation to it in different sectors (JRC PESETA projects). The evidence to date indicates that despite progress in understanding, knowledge gaps remain in the areas identified in the Strategy (notably as regards benefits of adaptation in other areas) and new ones have emerged, as adaptation is a fast evolving and complex field.

Table VIII2 Remaining knowledge gap components

The 2017 knowledge assessment study identified new gaps in the following two sectors:

Further new gaps identified by the EEA and other stakeholders are listed in Chapter 6.1 under the relevance criterion. They include:

·Interdependencies, synergies and trade-offs with other relevant sustainable development goals

·Enhanced communication, shared learning and co‑creation of knowledge.

·Spillover effects of impacts and adaptation within EU and at the global level. The case study on spillover effect from climate change impacts outside the EU (see Case Study 2 in Annex XIV) also highlights the need to review existing evidence and invest in this field.

·Adaptation in mountainous areas

·Long-term lack of water resources

·High-end climate change

·Gaps in research topics such as health, coastal areas, biodiversity.

124 research items (defined as research reports, projects and programmes) have been identified that were published in 2013 or later, and are focused on adaptation to climate change. Figure VIII-1 provides a breakdown of the 124 research items by source.

Figure VIII-1 Number of adaptation-focused projects and reports since 2013

Source: Own analysis

Expenditure on adaptation-related research includes:

·The seventeen FP7 projects identified that addressed adaptation to climate change had a total budget of EUR 106 million.

·A total of EUR 275 million has been committed to H2020 adaptation research projects starting between 2014 and 2017 (generally ending 3-5 years later). This amounts to 0.6% of the total H2020 budget 2014–2020. 230

·It is estimated that EUR 10 million was spent by JRC on adaptation since 2013, which equates to about 0.8% of the total JRC budget for this period. It is not possible to identify the exact proportion of JRC’s total budget made available for adaptation-related research over the period 2013 – 2016, as it cuts across several different parts of JRC and there is no specific budget head.

The EEA prepares assessments based on information provided by its member countries as well as from climate adaptation research and other information sources. EEA also funds the European Topic Centre on Climate Change Adaptation (ETC/CCA) to support its work programme on adaptation. Expenditure by EEA on all work on climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation is not available. But specifically for Climate-ADAPT, an estimate was calculated for the combined expenditure of EEA and the Commission of about 2.7 million EUR, for the period 2013-2016, based on EEA information.

Figure VIII-2 shows the 124 research items categorised according to the knowledge gaps identified in the Strategy that they address. A total of 50 items are related to newly emergent knowledge gaps: mainstreaming; cooperation; adaptation technologies; and a more generic category, including issues relating to the climate system and resilience. Although they are not strictly within the pre-formulated knowledge gaps of Action 4, they are related to other actions in the Strategy, so it seems reasonable to assume that they result from the Strategy.

Figure VIII-2 Research projects and reports addressing the four knowledge gaps or other emerging knowledge gaps

Source: Own analysis

Each of the 124 research items have been ascribed to the sector to which they primarily relate: cities, water, infrastructure, agriculture, nature, fisheries, health, disaster risk reduction, or ‘other’ (broad projects or programmes, encompassing many sectors). The most frequently addressed sectors were water (27 items), nature (25 items), and agriculture (24 items). A total of 30 items were categorised as ‘other’.

Taking costs identified in H2020 grants as a proxy for spending per domain, most addressed water, cities, and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Other research funding is spent by JRC, other EU directorates, Member States, and others, for which detailed data on expenditure was not found. The budget for the JRC reports could not be retrieved, as JRC does not monitor this amount separately, however, JRC estimates the total amount at Euro 10 million between 2013 and 2017.

Figure VIII-3 Total expenditure per domain

Source: Own analysis

In summary, 45 H2020 projects and 34 JRC reports dealing with adaptation have been identified. The total budget for the H2020 projects starting between 2014 and 2017 is EUR 275 million. A further EUR 148 million has been committed for 2018-2020.

The European Climate Change Adaptation conference series, launched in 2013 following the publication of the Strategy, has gained a significant momentum since its inception, and had become the de facto European forum of excellence for adaptation scientists and practitioners.

5.Climate-ADAPT

The information on the Climate–ADAPT portal is collected by the EEA, and the European Topic Centre on Climate Change Adaptation (ETC/CCA), from a range of information sources, including EU-funded research projects, Interreg, LIFE, national policy pages, and reports from NGOs and sector networks. These documents are submitted monthly to the database and subjected to a strict quality control process carried out by the EEA and the ETC/CCA. Currently, a total of 76 case studies describe implementation of adaptation actions and information on 40 adaptation options have been gathered. Country pages present the information on the state of play on adaptation in each Member State, which was reported under the Monitoring Mechanism Regulation in 2015 and was updated on a voluntary basis in 2016-2017. A total of 84 city profiles of selected Covenant of Mayors and Mayors Adapt signatories have been included.

The EEA mid-term evaluation report on Climate-ADAPT includes a set of use cases of Climate-ADAPT 231 which gives an overview of who is using Climate-ADAPT and what for. For example, the UK health sector has used Climate-ADAPT information to create a risk and adaptation plan for the health sector in England, while the City of Bologna has used Climate-ADAPT information to develop the Bologna Urban Adaptation Plan and guidelines for medium-sized Italian cities.

6.Key policy initiatives where adaptation was mainstreamed

During the period covered by the evaluation, adaptation was mainstreamed in EU and international disaster risk reduction polices. In 2013, the EU Civil Protection legislation was revised to ensure better response to natural and man-made disasters. Climate change was integrated in the new legislation as one of the reasons for the increasing severity and complexity of disasters and included as a component of the EU assessment of risks and in trainings for civil protection personnel. Since early 2014, much effort has been put in mainstreaming adaptation in the implementation of the Civil Protection Mechanism legislation and in all its annual work programmes. In 2017, a new Commission proposal for the Union Civil Protection mechanism was adopted: it recognizes a fundamental role for prevention in disaster risk management, and includes consideration of climate change impacts as a key component of effective prevention and preparedness.

Synergies between climate change adaptation and DRR were also enhanced in the implementation of EU cohesion policy funds, in particular the ERDF and the CF. Climate and disaster proofing are built into the appraisal of major projects for cohesion policy support. Moreover, risk assessments are a precondition for funding from the ERDF and CF.National climate change adaptation strategies are required, where appropriate, to inform national risk assessments. Currently work is ongoing to integrate climate change adaptation in the disaster risk reduction peer review system to promote policy development and actions relevant to disaster risk reduction. Climate change adaptation has also been mainstreamed in the work plan and in most outputs of the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Knowledge Centre (launched in September 2015).

From an international angle, Commission Services have worked to integrate climate change adaptation in the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction (adopted in March 2015). Much of the work done on cities, infrastructure, insurance, knowledge and loss and damage directly contributes to the implementation of the EU Action Plan on the Sendai Framework. Adaptation is also well anchored in the work of the European Forum for Disaster Risk reduction (co-lead by the EU Commission and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction) which aims to create a safer Europe by reducing risks and vulnerability and supports Europe's contribution to the Sendai framework.

As regards the EU’s Outermost Regions, the Commission adopted in October 2017 a new strategy 232 committing to consistently taking into account these regions’ specificities in all EU policies. This entails taking into account the particular constraints of these regions when designing the selection criteria and types of financial support. The Commission has committed to implementing a number of initiatives to cater for the climate vulnerabilities, which compound their specific limitations in terms of e.g. remoteness, small size, insularity and socio-economic problems. Certain French Outermost Regions were affected by hurricanes in 2017 (such as Saint-Martin, 95% of its French part having been destroyed by hurricane Irma).

In terms of EU water policy, the Blueprint to safeguard Europe's water resources was adopted in 2012 with the long-term objective to ensure the sustainability of all activities that impact on water. It recognised the challenges brought about by climate change and pointed to a number of means to preserve EU water resources. Blueprint actions included inter alia the development of a Green infrastructure strategy 233 that includes a specific chapter on adaptation, the development of a SWD on Agriculture and sustainable water management 234 , and a current proposal for “Minimum quality requirements for reused water in the EU”. 235

In a separate process, the Floods Directive foresaw upon its entry into force in 2007 the mandatory integration of climate change projections into their flood risk assessments, maps and plans by the 2nd cycle of its implementation (2016-2021). 14 Member States had already included climate change in their Preliminary Flood Risk Assessments and 16 in their Flood Hazard and Risk Maps by 2011 and 2013 respectively on the basis of readily available information in the 1st cycle of implementation (2010-15).

The Commission is currently in the process of assessing the Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs) in parallel with the River Basin Management Plans. A report summarising the findings of these assessments will be published in the 2nd half of 2018 and will make reference to climate change. Over the 2nd cycle of implementation (2016-2021) Member States are required to take into account the likely impact of climate change on the occurrence of floods, thus putting a stronger requirement compared to the 1st cycle.

The main EU initiative in urban policy, the Urban Agenda for the EU is progressing with the objective to include and better recognise the urban dimension in policies. Climate adaptation is one of the priority themes under the Urban Agenda for the EU and has been mainstreamed into its key elements, such as the EU One Stop Shop for Cities, the Urban Data Platform, Urban Innovative Actions, and the Urban Investments and Advisory Platform. A Climate Adaptation Partnership was launched in July 2017 236 and is currently preparing an action plan to be adopted by the end of 2018. Synergies with other Urban Agenda for the EU Partnerships are sought, including those on: Sustainable Use of Land and Nature-Based solutions; Circular Economy; Air Quality; and Energy Transition.

Adaptation was also mainstreamed into the Commission’s 2016 proposal on the Governance of the Energy Union. 237 The proposal, which had been foreseen in the 2015 Energy Union Strategy 238 , specified the Member States’ reporting requirements on adaptation policy in greater detail than the current Monitoring Mechanism Regulation, which it should replace in an effort to align with adaptation reporting under the Paris Agreement. The energy and climate related reporting in the EU will be also simplified, as it is regrouped under the same law. The draft regulation, on which the European Parliament and the Council reached an informal agreement in June 2018, equally ensures that the National Energy and Climate Plans to be submitted by the Member States in the future include climate adaptation components where applicable.

Climate change adaptation has actively been mainstreamed in EU development cooperation policy and actions. Strengthening climate change resilience, in particular in most vulnerable countries is considered as an important component of EU development cooperation and is therefore integrated in all the relevant EU policy documents (for example Agenda 2030, and the European Consensus on Development).

Operationally, support to climate change adaptation is integrated into:

·Development cooperation programs with partner countries (Instrument for Development Cooperation, DCI and European Development Fund, EDF) in sectors as energy, agriculture, water, forestry, disaster risk reduction, etc.

·Regional envelopes (EDF and DCI budgets), for example in Latin America (EuroClima) or in programmes on disaster risk reduction.

· Financed through dedicated thematic programmes, such as the Global Climate Change Alliance + (GCCA+)

Finance for climate change has increased in the past years from EUR 9.5 billion in 2013 to EUR 20.2 billion in 2016. To date, the European Commission is one of the major donors for adaptation finance: in 2017, more than 50% of the climate change finance was dedicated to adaptation projects.

During the period covered by the evaluation, awareness was raised on the link between climate change, EU external relations and security. In the past couple of years concrete steps have been made to integrate and recognize climate change as a threat multiplier which if not managed well can spur a downward spiral of fragility and conflict. Concretely, climate change has become an important part of the External Action Service strategic reflections 239 and it has been integrated in the External Action Service work on security and conflict prevention. The EU Conflict Early Warning System (EWS) assesses the risk of emergence, re-emergence and escalation of violent conflict in the coming four years. Climate change has over the last 2 years been a priority theme for conflict prevention and fragility assessment in the EWS. For the countries that are prioritised by the EWS, an in-depth conflict analysis is conducted which also looks at climate change impacts.

Relevant to the security angle is also the progress made on recognizing and further analysing the link between climate change and human displacement, as demonstrated at the international level by the creation of a Task Force on Displacement in the context of the UNFCCC. 240  In 2013, a Commission Staff Working Paper on Climate Change and Migration was adopted together with the EU Adaptation Strategy. This paper provides an overview of the research and data currently available on the interlinkages between climate change, environmental degradation and migration.

Since 2013, EU policies on migration and external relations have increasingly taken into account climate change as a trigger to displacement and climate change adaptation as an effective tool to tackle root causes of migration. Examples include: Council conclusion on Climate diplomacy in 2013 241 , 2016 242 and 2018 243 and the 2016 Communication on Forced Displacement and Development 244 .

Environmentally induced migration continues to be a priority under the EU's external cooperation instruments for the period 2014-2020. The Programme on Global Public Goods and Challenges 245 includes a migration and asylum component which includes a commitment to deliver on improving understanding of the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation on migration flows and the potential of migration to contribute to climate change adaptation. Moreover, the EU financed a number of projects to develop knowledge and practices to address climate induced migration.

The 2017 Joint Communication 246  on Resilience developed to define an approach to address the challenges identified in the EU’s Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy 247 builds on the 2013-2020 Resilience Action Plan 248 and is aligned with EU commitments to the 2030 Agenda 249 . It consider economic resilience as an important area for the overall resilience of the EU, with climate change as a cross-cutting disruptive element, mentioning financial contingency measures, sustainable and inclusive investment, and promotion of a circular economy to protect vital services and facilities in case of instability. The EU is to “work with the European Investment Bank, other International Financial Institutions, business sector organisations and social partners to enhance investment frameworks for economic and social resilience”, notably by “promoting risk transfer through risk financing mechanisms such as insurance and contingency credit”.

How the topic of adaptation was mainstreamed in EU funds (CAP, CFP, ESIF) is analysed in more detail in section 8 below.

7.Carbon Disclosure Project survey results on companies and climate risks 

The 2017 company questionnaires for climate change, forestry and water undertaken by Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) did not extensively report on climate adaptation activities on a company level. Consequently, the level of analysis on adaptation activities by private organisations is limited by the generic framing of questions, and the overlap between climate adaptation practices and conventional risk management strategies.

Accounting for the analytical limitations, the 2017 climate change questionnaire still found cases of climate impacts capable of impact on businesses. Inter alia, the questionnaire found that 84% of the 764 surveyed companies had identified inherent 'physical climate parameters' with the potential to generate a substantive change to the business operations, revenue or expenditure. Similarly, in the 2017 questionnaire for the CDP Forests Program found an even higher climate relevance of identified operational risks, with 40% of identified operational risks having a direct climate relevance, and an additional 51% with an indirect climate relevance. The Forests Program questionnaire further suggests that companies consider such operational risks to be likely to occur, with 78% of companies indicating risks to be medium – high likelihood of affecting their operations (CDP Forests Program 2017 questionnaire).

CDP's 2017 Water Information Request found that 93% of companies undertake water-related risk assessments. 85% of surveyed companies indicate inherent water risks with an ability to affect business production and continuity (CDP 2017 Water Information Request). The assessment of adaptation actions and risk mitigation strategies is rendered difficult by the overlap between these actions and more conventional business risk mitigation strategies. Supplier engagement and diversification represents the most commonly adopted response strategy (41% of actions), with 26% of strategies incorporating made up of infrastructure & technological investment, due diligence, monitoring & evaluation, facility relocation, risk transfer instruments and flood emergency plans (see figure below).

Figure VIII-4. Most commonly implemented response strategies reported by companies through the CDP 2017 Water Information Request

For 2018 the CDP is restructuring the questionnaires to enable more direct linkages to climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. Through these changes, it is anticipated that companies will be able to report in greater detail on activities such as new service developments, land management practices and supplier engagements with concrete mitigation and/or adaptation benefits.

8.EU funds for climate resilience

Common Agriculture Policy

According to a 2016 study 250 , the EAFRD is the only ESIF where there seems to be a greater focus on adaptation actions compared to mitigation objectives. While this seems to enhance the status of Action 6 of the Strategy, there are two important caveats. Firstly, while adaptation seems to be well acknowledged into Rural Development Programmes (RDPs), it seldom appears as the objective having presided over the choice of the specific measures. This is especially so due to the difficulty to separate mitigation and adaptation related measures in agriculture and forestry sector, as those measures offer co-benefits. Adaptation is considered by virtually all RDPs. It is more to the fore in those regions that are already being affected by extreme weather events. While many measures (e.g. targeting biodiversity, soil, and water use) have the potential to support climate adaptation, whether they are implemented will need to be assessed by an ex post evaluation of programmes. Secondly, the tracking methodology developed for the EAFRD raises concerns about over-estimations. The European Court of Auditors has suggested an alternative and more conservative use of the Commission’s climate markers. It concluded that this could reduce the overall climate allocations under the EAFRD by 42%. 251 The Commission took note of the suggestions while emphasising that the tracking methodology needs to remain stable during the current MFF for reasons of predictability, consistency and transparency. However, ways of fine-tuning the tracking methodology for the EAFRD may be considered for the post-2020 programming period without increasing the administrative burden.

More broadly, climate mainstreaming is supported under the EAFRD by the requirement for RDPs to spend at least 30% on a range of climate and environmental measures. 252 Nevertheless, this minimum requirement includes measures which do not appear to have a significant impact on the achievement of climate objectives. 253 It is also notable that while rural development measures provide scope to fund adaptation that directly benefits farm businesses (for example, support for more efficient irrigation systems) and delivers wider public benefits (e.g. land management practices which reduce flood risks), programmes appear to focus on the former.

The European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF), which funds the CAP’s direct payments, is not part of ESIF. Climate considerations are included via the greening component (30% of total direct payments) and cross-compliance (basic requirements to access direct payments). According to the Commission’s calculations around 20% of direct payments can be considered climate relevant. The European Court of Auditors (2016) suggests that assumptions used for this estimate lack sound justification, in particular, for measuring the climate relevance of the non-greening component. With the application of more conservative estimates, they identify that the total contribution can be reduced by EUR 9 billion from EUR 47.1 billion to EUR 38 billion. 254 The Commission’s response to the report states that it considers its methodology suitably conservative and does not lead to an overestimation. The principal climate relevant impact of the greening measures is carbon sequestration represented by the permanent grassland measure. Diversification and ecological focus areas can also support adaptation. Certain elements of the cross-compliance requirements related to biodiversity, soil, water also indirectly contribute to adaptation. Cross-compliance has helped to encourage adaptation actions to some degree. There is an ongoing evaluation 255 by the Commission of the impact of the CAP on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, which is expected to also provide evidence on adaptation actions in the CAP.

Cohesion Policy

Both the ERDF and the CF provide contributions to the climate adaptation objectives under the adaptation Thematic Objective (TO5), under low-carbon economy (TO4) and also in other Thematic Objectives due to the horizontal mainstreaming. The ESF does not target TO5 256 . The climate tracking system applied under the Cohesion Policy, in particular the ERDF and the CF, is the most sophisticated. The climate markers are applied to a thematic list of 123 intervention codes 257 at the point when expenditure is committed by the managing authorities. For the 2014-2020 programming period, the intervention codes have been revised. A code specifically focusing on adaptation actions (code 087: “Adaptation to climate change measures and prevention and management of climate related risks e.g. erosion, fires, flooding, storms and drought, including awareness raising, civil protection and disaster management systems and infrastructures”) was introduced, to which a 100% climate marker was applied. Furthermore, a separate code (100: “Outermost regions: support to compensate additional costs due to climate conditions and relief difficulties”) was put in place to track adaptation actions in outermost regions but only counts as 40%.

According to the study 258 estimates, which build on the amount of allocations for the relevant intervention codes, EUR 6 billion has been allocated to adaptation objectives under the Cohesion Policy with EUR 3 billion each for ERDF and CF. This accounts for 11.2% of the total ERDF and CF allocation. Furthermore, another EUR 4 billion was estimated to provide indirect climate (mitigation and adaptation) benefits. The review of the Operational Priorities showed that nearly half of them addressed climate change adaptation at the high strategic level of the Operational Priorities, which then translate into specific objectives and actions. Most adaptation relevant allocations targeted flood protection measures. Other allocations include actions on drought and heatwaves and less frequently on specific sector-related actions (e.g. energy efficiency in buildings and making transport infrastructure climate-resilient).

More broadly, climate change objectives (both mitigation and adaptation) are further supported in Cohesion Policy by the legal provisions for the ESIF (e.g. horizontal mainstreaming, ex ante conditionalities, major project assessments and common output indicators).

Adaptation objectives are also an important component of the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) goal, which is supported by the ERDF. The ETC has been further strengthened in the 2014-2020 programming period through closer alignment with the macro-regional strategies and greater recognition and encouragement of Member States to cooperate at the macro-regional and sea-basin level. More than 20% or almost EUR 2 billion of the ETC programmes expenditure is expected to contribute to climate change objectives. Adaptation is emphasised in these programmes: with 75% of all cooperation programmes including adaptation as part of their strategy, and a particularly high level of support for adaptation in cross-border programmes (as opposed to transnational and interregional programmes). In addition to the cooperation programmes themselves, territorial cooperation is also being pursued by the EU macro-regional strategies (e.g. the EU Strategy for the Danube Region or the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region – see Case Study 3 in Annex XIV). In many cases, the macro-regional strategies have a targeted focus on adaptation actions.

Support from the CF can be only applied in a limited number of Member States 259 . Those Member States which cannot receive funds from the CF made a greater use of the EAFRD for their adaptation actions, although the actual adaptation impacts of these actions are not always clear (see comment above in section on climate-proofing the CAP). Another interesting aspect is the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy. This is primarily supported by the ERDF but also receives support through CF and ESF. To strengthen the role of the ERDF in sustainable urban development, a target of 5% was set as a minimum share of ERDF that needs to be spent directly on integrated urban strategies by the cities. Furthermore, the emphasis on cities in ERDF investments have been increased, as about EUR 15 billion from the ERDF is planned to be directly managed by cities. At the same time, the EEA has highlighted that “although climate change adaptation is not a major focus in this, the support for green infrastructure might be considerable, as a major emphasis is on urban rejuvenation and brown field regeneration”. 260 While green infrastructure has the potential to deliver adaptation benefits, in the ERDF and CF Operational Programmes most of the green infrastructure actions were described only in general terms, rather than in the more explicit terms used for other types of investment (for example, investments to achieve water quality goals). Thus, implementation of these actions is uncertain.

In addition to the 5% ear-marking for integrated urban strategies, ERDF allocations to TO4 (”Supporting the shift towards a low-carbon economy in all sectors”) shall be at least 20% in more developed regions, 15% in transition regions, and 12% in less developed regions. 261 A similar ear-marking is not in place for the adaptation objective. (TO5), but there is also possibility to finance low-carbon strategies, including mitigation-related adaptation measures under TO4. Finally, climate considerations integrated into decisions on major projects supported by the ERDF and CF, as a result of the legal provisions on assessment of such projects, are also expected to have a positive impact on climate adaptation and climate resilience.

Common Fisheries Policy

As mentioned above, the thematic objectives set in legislation for ESIF include TO5, which explicitly addresses climate adaptation and risk management. However, the legislation for the EMFF 262 does not specifically address TO5, indicating a lesser focus on climate adaptation actions. Nevertheless, the study found that some of the measures (e.g. the protection and restoration of marine biodiversity, and the adaptation of fishing gear to altering conditions) under the EMFF have the potential to deliver adaptation objectives.

At the same time, the climate tracking methodology for EMFF is not developed in great detail. Furthermore, the ECA (2016) notes that Member States were not required to report on climate expenditure until 2016 and, as such, the accuracy of Commission estimates cannot be verified. It states that the current legal framework shows that “direct and clear references to climate change objectives, both mitigation and adaptation, are still rare and, as a result, the fisheries fund had not widened the scope of its contribution to climate action”. Indirect contribution of EMFF to climate adaptation objectives cannot be tracked given the lack of detailed tracking methodology.

Overall expenditure on adaptation

An indicative split between adaptation and mitigation – based on the outcome of the programming exercise – is presented below in Figure VIII-5 from a study 263 undertaken for the Commission as part of the mainstreaming of climate action 264 into the European Structural and Investment Funds in the programming period 2014-2020.

Many measures that are good for mitigation also entail co-benefit for adaptation and vice-versa. Hence an identification of measures exclusively supporting mitigation or adaptation objectives would neither be desirable nor feasible. This however does not prevent from tracking expenditures supportive of mitigation and adaptation objectives separately, even if a certain proportion of such expenditures is then counted twice.

Figure VIII-5

9.Adaptation-related work in the European Standardisation Organisations

CEN-CENELEC were expected to map relevant EU standards that could ensure that new major infrastructure projects are climate proofed. In May 2014, the Commission gave the European standardisation organisations (ESOs) a mandate 265 to develop tools to consider climate change in a systematic way in European standardisation, to identify standards relevant for adaptation to climate change in the three priority infrastructure sectors 266 identified in the Strategy, and to revise those standards or to develop new ones as appropriate. The first phase of the work under the mandate was completed at the beginning of 2017 and resulted in a shortlist of 12 standards to be revised and 1 standard to be written under the second phase, which started at the beginning of 2018 and is expected to take about four years. CEN-CENELEC will then consider whether the process should be extended to other standards. The technical committees are currently asking for more detailed information on climate change projections data. In addition, the 'Guide for addressing climate change adaptation in standards' 267 was adopted in April 2016 by CEN-CENELEC. The guide applies to product- (including design), service-, infrastructure- and test standards, and is intended to be applicable to both "climate-influenced products" (i.e. products whose fitness for purpose may be affected if climate change is ignored) and "climate resilience products" (i.e. products whose main aim is to reduce vulnerability to climate hazards). The guide is primarily intended for authors of standards.

10.Insurance and financial services

Currently, risk transfer does not constitute an integral part of adaptation approaches in many Member States, in spite of the fact that the insurance industry’s risk pricing can allow efficient scoping in terms of where risk reduction is required. Member States apply diverse systems of insurance, which represents a challenge to an increased market-penetration of risk transfer mechanisms across Europe.

The Strategy’s evaluation study noted that ideally risk transfer and insurance solutions are an integral part of a comprehensive approach to climate adaptation and risk management. There is growing evidence that countries with widespread market-based insurance coverage do recover faster from the financial impacts of extreme events. While the benefits of risk transfer tools, such as insurance, are increasingly being recognised globally, there is still a large, and in some places growing insurance coverage gap, as the difference between total damages due to natural catastrophes and damages covered by insurance is increasing. On average, more than two thirds of the economic losses from natural hazards remain uninsured globally 268 . The gap in EU countries could be as high as 50%, given the level of development and concentration of people and assets in high-risk zones.

Two studies commissioned by the EU 269 looked into insurance as a risk management tool in agriculture. One provides an analysis of current agricultural risks and available risk management instruments in agriculture and recognises climate change as a growing risk; the other looks into insurance against weather and climate-related risks focusing on private property and agriculture. The two studies point to uneven availability and uptake of climate-related risk insurance among Member States, as well as differences in signalling and risk prevention capacity of the different instruments. Both point to multi-peril crop insurance as an interesting avenue, but to the low uptake of such risk management tools. The studies recommend the integration and further support to risk management instruments in the framework of the agricultural policy, to strengthen capacity to implement, manage and control such instruments, and to better link vulnerability, funding and insurance as a risk management tool.

Having regard to Disaster Risk Reduction and adaptation to climate change, the EU Action Plan on the Sendai Framework includes actions on insurance. 270  

There were some concrete activities in relation to insurance and climate adaptation, notably an expert group was created to consider how to collect better data on losses, as it is easier to convince people to take adaptation actions when shown that this can reduce losses.

Financial services are the major source of investments made in new infrastructure, which should be climate resilient. For example, the insurance sector not only provides insurance to assist in recovery from damages, it also relies on investing the premiums it receives to generate an income to cover future claims (risk transfer). As a result, the insurance sector is the largest institutional investor in infrastructure in Europe, with more than EUR 10 trillion of assets under its management.

The Capital Markets Union (CMU) 271 seeks to create the enabling conditions for new forms of funding to be developed and strengthened for small firms, as well as for long-term and infrastructure investment. It aims to use financial innovations to bridge the information gap between investors and businesses. The CMU also seeks to mobilise private capital to fund sustainable investment by identifying ways to create financial regulation that accelerates the shift of private capital toward environmentally and socially sustainable projects.

As part of the CMU efforts, the Commission also established and supported the work of a High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance, which produced a final report in January 2018. 272 The main findings of the Group were based around priority actions, many of which were taken on board by the Commission, who in March 2018 proposed an EU action plan on financing sustainable growth. 273 Some relevant actions and proposals in the new action plan are:

·Subject to the results of its impact assessment, a Commission legislative proposal on the development of an EU classification system for sustainable economic activities.

·Creating EU labels for green financial products to enable investors to identify investments easily that comply with green or low-carbon criteria. The Commission will propose a delegated act on the content of the prospectus for green bond issuances.

·Subject to the results of its impact assessment, a Commission legislative proposal to clarify institutional investors' and asset managers' duties on sustainability and to increase transparency of end-investors, including transparency on their strategy and climate-related exposures.

·Requiring insurance and investment firms to advise clients on the basis of their preferences on sustainability. Subject to the results of their impact assessment, the Commission will propose delegated acts regarding the suitability assessment in the Insurance Distribution Directive and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive

·Work towards incorporating climate risks into institutions' risk management policies and on the potential calibration of banks' capital requirements in the Capital Requirement Regulation and Directive to take into account climate change-related risks while safeguarding financial stability and ensuring coherence with the EU taxonomy.

·Enhancing transparency in corporate reporting; with a proposal to revise the guidelines on non-financial information to further align them with the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board's Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures 274 . Subject to the result of its impact assessment, the Commission will draft a proposal requiring asset managers and institutional investors to disclose how they consider sustainability factors in their investment decision making process.

Regarding infrastructure investments, a delegated act 275 under the Solvency II Directive 276 was amended in September 2015. These amendments are aimed at making it cheaper for EU insurance companies to invest in qualifying infrastructure projects by establishing and calibrating investment risk categories for such projects. The Commission has also introduced measures 277 to review risk calibrations for investment in infrastructure corporates 278 . In order to encourage private investment by banks in infrastructure, the Commission proposal to amend the Capital Requirements Regulation and Directive (CRR/CRD IV) 279 would create a more risk-sensitive regulatory environment to promote high-quality infrastructure projects and reduce risks for investors.

11.Summary of costs related to the Strategy

Summary of costs per year and action, EUR millions

Notes and sources: Gaps in the table signify that no data was found for this specific item, although in reality there may still have been relevant costs incurred.

12.Coherence with other EU policies

Action 1 focuses on the development of strategies and plans to promote resilience at Member State level. The work carried out within this action is very relevant and coherent with EU objectives and legislation on disaster risk reduction. For example, the support and knowledge developed on risk and vulnerability assessments, as an important step of adaptation planning, is in line with the objective in the Union Civil Protection Mechanism legislation on disaster risk management planning and risk assessment . The scoreboard developed by the Commission to assess preparedness in Member States and its indicators are closely linked to those developed under the Hyogo Framework for Action 288 . Moreover, the coordination of disaster risk management and adaptation policies is explicitly mentioned in the scoreboard. Coherent monitoring and evaluation practices are important for DRR and adaptation. Joint work on indicators is of high relevance, for instance, in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework.

In November, the Commission adopted a Communication to Strengthen EU disaster Management. The Communication highlights the importance of prevention as part of the disaster risk management cycle, as well as the need to reinforce coherence with other key EU policies acting, inter alia, in the field of climate change adaptation. In the recent Commission proposal for the EU civil protection mechanism legislation, Member States are requested to produce prevention and preparedness plans which need to include longer-term prevention efforts, looking at the overall adaptation to the increasing impacts of climate change.

Action 3 is focusing on the implementation of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy initiative. High level of coherence was maintained with other legislative instruments and urban initiatives, in the areas of water, environment and disaster risk reduction. For example, the European Urban Water Agenda, the European Green Leaf and Green Capital Awards initiatives, the new tool for cities assessing their environmental performance, the 2017 Action Plan for nature, people and economy, just to mention a few, are implemented in close cooperation with Action 3. Coherence with disaster risk reduction policy is fostered in particular through indicators. The indicators of the Covenant of Mayors were developed in due consideration of indicators adopted for the Sendai DRR framework.

Furthermore, the urban dimension of the many EU policies is gaining importance after the establishment of the Urban Agenda for the EU, within which the newly established Climate Adaptation Partnership started a potentially new area of work. All these new developments offer opportunities to reap further benefits from more coordination and mainstreaming of urban adaptation action.

Actions 6, 7 and 8, under the Strategy’s “Climate-proofing EU action” objective, are focused on key areas of the EU’s budget. They show a high level of coherence between adaptation priorities and the relevant policy areas. For Action 6, the literature review suggested it complements (and is reinforced by) the high-level political commitment to spend at least 20% of the EU budget on climate objectives given that the CAP, Cohesion Policy and the CFP make up around 70% of the total EU budget. However, current work on the mainstreaming process in relation to the EU budget suggests that the absence of a coordinating mechanism to focus the 20% of expenditure on the priorities most likely to deliver climate outcomes, and the lack of a distinction between mitigation and adaptation investment, limits the impact of the 20% commitment. 289 This is a complex undertaking, because there are synergies and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation to be considered when tracking expenditure or developing policy, such as:

·Sustainable management of ecosystems to implement simultaneously mitigation and adaptation actions, for example, by conserving forests to protect natural stores of carbon within trees and decrease soil erosion or water flows.

·Urban densification is good for mitigation but may exacerbate vulnerability by increasing heat island effects and heat impacts (in turn driving up cooling demand). Similarly, increased use of biomass can affect land and water availability for green infrastructure or nature-based solutions.

There is a need to better track expenditure under the CAP and Cohesion Policy that delivers real adaptation benefits. While there is a tendency to simply assume that appropriately labelled CAP and Cohesion Policy expenditure is relevant to adaptation, there is scope to better define how the spending should contribute to resilience both generally in the Strategy and in the specific programme legislation.

Action 7 (ensuring more resilient infrastructure) is translated into a set of guidelines, which have clear potential to improve coherence in practice. Ensuring coherence between adaptation and new infrastructure at the EU level is a complicated task given the potential long-term lock-in effects.

13.Coherence with international policies

This section presents in more detail the relevance of different international frameworks for EU adaptation policy, as a complement to Chapter 3.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has undertaken extensive work related to ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. 290 Two of the CBD's Aichi targets (10 and 15) 291 aim at minimizing the impact of climate change on ecosystems. Voluntary Guidelines on ecosystem-based adaptation and disaster risk reduction are under preparation for adoption at CBD COP XIV in November 2018.

In 2015, the Agenda 2030 and the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals 292 for 2030 were adopted, many of which are either directly or indirectly relevant for climate change adaptation (e.g. Goal 13 on climate action, Goal 11 on sustainable and resilient cities) and towards which the related actions under the EU Adaptation Strategy contribute.

The mainstreaming of climate change adaptation in the EU's development policies is coordinated and ensured at all stages of the planning and implementation process. In addition, the main channel for EU support to policy dialogue and climate action in developing countries is the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA+) initiative. The overall objective of the GCCA+ is to foster policy dialogue and cooperation on climate change between the EU and developing countries which are most vulnerable to climate change and to contribute to their action to address climate change. The GCCA+ is evolving with the aim of contributing to the sectoral implementation of NDCs, thus also covering mitigation actions, along the lines of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement. It will nevertheless also continue supporting National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Disaster Risk reduction strategies.

Lessons learned in planning for and implementing the Strategy, including scientific knowledge and tools gained, provide input to the process. In addition, the core principles promoted by the Strategy – such as mainstreaming climate risks and vulnerabilities in planning, developing national and sub-national plans, promoting risk transfer mechanisms – are well aligned with core principles of EU development cooperation.

It should also be noted that the CBD’s Aichi Targets, adopted under the CBD’s Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing, particularly Targets 10 and 15, emphasise climate impacts and resilience, and that action under the Strategy contributes towards their delivery. 293 As part of the post-2015 development agenda, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 294 was created with seven targets and four priorities of action. To translate this framework into EU action, in July 2016 the Commission published an Action Plan 295 on the implementation of the Sendai Framework.

Annex IXHorizontal assessment of the adaptation preparedness country fiches

1.Background and objectives

The European Commission adopted the Communication: “An EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change” in April 2013 296 . The Communication states that “The overall aim of the EU Adaptation Strategy is to contribute to a more climate-resilient Europe. This means enhancing the preparedness and capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change at local, regional, national and EU levels, developing a coherent approach and improving coordination.” The Strategy defines three objectives and eight actions to meet this aim. Action 1 is to “Encourage all Member States to adopt comprehensive adaptation strategies” and includes a commitment that “By 2014, the Commission will develop an adaptation preparedness scoreboard, identifying key indicators for measuring Member States’ level of readiness.”

The Commission’s discussions with Member States on the adaptation preparedness scoreboard began in 2013. A detailed draft scoreboard methodology was subsequently developed, largely based on an approach recommended in the Commission guidelines on developing adaptation strategies 297 , and was published on the Climate-Adapt website 298 . This methodology was used by the Commission in 2015 to undertake an unpublished pilot assessment and produce a national scoreboard of each Member State’s performance.

Based on the lessons learned from the pilot phase, the Commission revised the scoreboard methodology by streamlining the indicators and defining criteria for assessing them, categories of information sought and guidance to enable a consistent approach to analysing the state of play in Member States. The Commission consulted Member States on the modified scoreboard methodology (see Annex X) and carried out a second assessment, as part of the evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy in 2017-2018. The resultant draft country fiches, including the national scoreboards, were published in December 2017, in conjunction with the public consultation on the evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy.

A further review of the national scoreboards and country fiches was undertaken in April and June 2018 to take account of recent developments and to ensure the quality and coherence of the country fiches. The final documents accompany this evaluation as a separate Staff Working Document. 299

2.Method

The adaptation preparedness scoreboard methodology addresses 11 main performance areas in relation to the five steps of the adaptation cycle (see Figure IX-1 below). The scoreboard methodology and detailed indicator list can be found in Annex X. A country fiche was developed for each Member State that provides:

·Contextual data on the national adaptation policy framework for each Member State, including dates when national adaptation strategies (NAS) and national adaptation plans (NAP) were adopted and revised

·A narrative in relation to each of the indicators based on the criteria for assessing them. The status of each of the indicators was assessed in relation to this narrative as either already having been met (“Yes”) or, for some indicators, as progressively being met by ongoing implementation (“In progress”), or as not met (“No”)

·A summary table of the status of all indicators (the national adaptation preparedness scoreboard).

The information used to produce the country fiches was drawn from a review of relevant literature and, in many cases, interacting with Member State representatives.

The narrative and assessment of status in relation to each indicator were reviewed horizontally across all 28 Member States using the scoreboard methodology (see Annex X) to check that the nature and level of information and scoring were consistent.

The information on the national policy frameworks, the narrative associated with the indicators and resultant scores in the final country fiches were used as a basis for this horizontal assessment of the adaptation preparedness of Member States.

Figure IX-1. The adaptation preparedness scoreboard’s 11 main performance areas in relation to the five steps of the adaptation policy cycle

Methodological limitations

The country fiches were the result of a desk-based exercise, so their accuracy is entirely reliant on the availability of published information and on the input received from Member State representatives.

The scores for each indicator (“Yes”, “No”, or “In progress”) assess the state of play within each country. They should only be considered at a Member State level alongside the narrative that accompanies them in the country fiches. While effort was made to ensure consistency across fiches in the assessment of each individual indicator, scores should not be directly compared across the Member States. The assessment of status requires subjective assimilation of a number of factors, including availability of information, so two countries with a "Yes" in relation to the same indicator may have different national situations leading to that assessment. Nevertheless, some of the indicators with the simplest criteria (e.g. Indicators 1a and 8a, see Annex X) may be more comparable and aggregable than those that have numerous, complex criteria and information requirements (e.g. Indicators 6a, 6b and 9a).

The scoreboard methodology only provides an option for some specific indicators to be scored as "In progress". Scoring the other indicators definitively, as “Yes” or “No”, was challenging where insufficient information was published and further verifiable information could not be readily provided by Member State representatives.

Scores were based on strategies, plans and policies that were already adopted. No account was taken in the scoring of proposed documents in development or consultation at the time of the assessment. This was the case even where proposals were described in the country fiches and the adoption of strategies, plans or policies was potentially imminent.

In developing this horizontal assessment, it was important to bear in mind these limitations in the way that the country fiches were produced and national scoreboards were determined. It is equally important that they are borne in mind by readers of this report to avoid over interpretation of the results, analysis and conclusions.

3.Results and analysis

The dates when Member States 300 adopted and revised a NAS and/or a NAP 301 provide important context for the interpretation of the scoreboard assessment (Table IX-1). A total of 25 Member States have adopted an NAS. Although Bulgaria, Croatia and Latvia have not yet adopted a NAS, the documents are drafted and likely to be adopted in 2018.

Table IX-1. Adoption of first NASs and NAPs

* The revision of the first NAS is currently ongoing and is expected to be completed in 2018.

An analysis is set out below in relation to each step of the adaptation policy cycle and each of the 11 main areas of performance. Member States that have achieved positive scores in relation to indicators are listed wherever there are less than 10 of them or for indicators where such information may be important to those Member States that are yet to make progress in that specific regard. Listing of Member States in this way should not be interpreted as meaning that their actions in relation to an indicator are comparable; inevitably different Member States’ relevant actions vary widely, as noted under ‘Methodological limitations’ (above).

Step A: Preparing the ground for adaptation

1. A country-wide governance system is in place for adaptation policy making and vertical and horizontal coordination arrangements are in place between governmental bodies

All Member States have a central administration body officially in charge of adaptation policy making.

Systematic coordination across sectors at a national level is in place in 23 Member States, and is applied in relation to drafting of the NAS and subsequent implementation.

Currently, there is systematic coordination across national, regional and local levels of administration in only 16 Member States (BG, DE, EE, EL, ES, FI, FR, HU, IE, IT, LT, NL, PT, RO, SK, UK), but progress is being made in a further 10 to enable lower levels of administration to influence policy making. In almost all of these Member States (22 out of 26) where vertical coordination is in place in some form, the involvement of sub-national governance levels does not seem to have a sectoral focus. Vertical coordination can take place not only during the drafting of the NAS but can also be sustained during implementation. Involvement in both drafting and implementation has taken place in 16 Member States (AT, DE, DK, EE, EL, ES, FI, FR, IE, IT, LT, NL, PT, RO, SK, UK). Box 1 presents a selection of good examples of how vertical coordination mechanisms support adaptation sub-nationally.

2. Stakeholders (e.g. interest groups, scientists and general public) are involved in the preparation of adaptation policies

With only two exceptions, all Member States have a dedicated process in place to facilitate stakeholders' involvement in the preparation of adaptation policies. Most country fiches indicate that a wide range of stakeholders have been consulted, including the private sector, non-governmental organisations, research organisations and universities, as well as the general public, in addition to government departments and local authorities (Figure IX-2).

Figure IX-2. Types of stakeholders involved in the preparation of adaptation policy

All but one Member State integrated transboundary cooperation to address common challenges with relevant countries, almost invariably with regard to water, and more occasionally with regard to biodiversity, energy, health and “other” issues, including mountain ranges (Figure IX-3). The extent of transboundary cooperation and whether it is driven by the NAS/NAP varies between Member States, with 15 of the Member States having addressed this dimension in the NAS/NAP. Other drivers include international initiatives (e.g. the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, and the Alpine Convention), and EU initiatives (e.g. EU macro-regional strategies) and projects. Examples of transboundary cooperation are presented in Box 2.

Figure IX-3. Sectoral transboundary cooperation on adaptation issues

Step B: Assessing risks and vulnerabilities to climate change

3. Systems are in place to monitor and assess current and projected climate change, impacts and vulnerability

A total of 14 Member States have established observation systems to monitor climate change, extreme climate events and their impacts, and systems are being developed in all of the other Member States. According to the country fiches, Member States collect data on climate impacts in relation to multiple types of variables. Those most commonly captured are sectors affected (14 Member States), costs (12 Member States), and number of people affected (six Member States: BE, FR, IT, LU NL, RO). 312

Climate change scenarios and projections are available at national level for 25 Member States, and at a sub-national for 10 Member States. Only three Member States rely solely on international data. Climate change scenarios and projections are being used to assess future economic, social and environmental impacts in at least 23 Member States, with others steadily making progress in this respect.

Sound climate risk and/or vulnerability assessments for priority sectors are being undertaken to support adaptation decision making by at least 22 Member States, with all but one of the other Member States making progress in that regard. The frequency with which different sectors are addressed is shown in Figure IX-4. In addition to those sectors specified in the figure, small numbers of Member States addressed a wide range of “Other” individual sectors or themes, including: coastal; desertification; disaster risk management; economy; finance; ICT networks; infrastructure; insurance; land use; maritime; mountains; natural environment; society; soil; spatial planning; tourism; urban; and waste management. Three Member States (DE, SI, UK) were identified as having assessed all vulnerable sectors. Climate risk and/or vulnerability assessments are: coordinated centrally in 22 Member States, although in six of these countries further assessments have been driven by independent research projects or scientific organisations; sector driven in three countries (PL, PT, SE), albeit independently in one case; and carried out as a wholly independent research project in NL. 313  

A recent European Environment Agency (EEA) report 314 concluded that a variety of approaches is used for impact and vulnerability assessments, including literature review, dedicated research programmes and projects, model-based studies and stakeholder-driven processes. Most of the assessments have a broad scope, with up to 19 different sectors and thematic areas covered, such as in the case of FI and UK. The EEA report found that similar categories to those cited in Figure IX-4 (below) are addressed in the assessments.

Figure IX-4. Categories of sectors where climate risk/vulnerability assessments are undertaken 315

Transboundary risks are taken into account in a coordinated manner by three Member States across all or a wide range of sectors (DE, FI, PT) when undertaking climate risk and/or vulnerability assessments. A total of 19 Member States are assessing transboundary risks primarily in relation to the water sector. Consideration of transboundary risks is driven by the NAS in three Member States (UK, plus FI and PT also being driven at a project level) whereas in other countries it is sector-driven or implemented at a project level.

4. Knowledge gaps on climate change and climate change adaptation are tackled

Work is being carried out to identify, prioritise and address the knowledge gaps in 15 Member States (Figure IX-5, below, categorises the knowledge gaps identified in these country fiches). A further 11 countries have identified knowledge gaps but there seems to be limited activity to address the gaps through further research and work. In most of the countries, the NAS includes actions related to knowledge but one-off projects are the primary driver in four countries.

Box 3 (below) summarises principles emerging from the country fiches for good practices in addressing climate change and climate adaptation knowledge gaps. In the EEA report on national impact and vulnerability assessments 316 , most mentioned knowledge gaps and themes where additional knowledge needs remain today are the consideration of non-climatic factors, cross-sectoral interactions and cross-border impacts, common metrics for impacts and vulnerabilities, uncertainties, long-term adaptation and targeted communication.

Figure IX-5. Types of knowledge gaps identified in countries where work is ongoing to address them

5. Knowledge transfer processes are in place to build adaptive capacity across sectors

Adaptation-related data and information (e.g. climate projections, vulnerability and risk assessments, adaptation tools) are available to all stakeholders, including policy makers, in 17 Member States. At least some stakeholders have access to such information in a further nine Member States. A total of 19 of these countries have a national web-based platform for disseminating information. In addition, at least one of the countries without a national platform has a regional platform covering part of the Member State. In 2014 317 , only 12 Member States had a dedicated adaptation platform, while also transnational regions such as the Alpine, Baltic Sea or Pyrenees regions had a publicly available adaptation platform.

Coordination of associated capacity-building activities (including education on climate adaptation concepts and practices, and dissemination of training materials), usually driven by the NAS or NAP, is established in half of Member States. However, systematic actions on capacity building are being pursued in a further 11 countries.

Box 4 (below) summarises principles emerging from the country fiches for good practices in relation to knowledge transfer, including capacity building. The challenges are similar to the ones detected in the 2015 EEA report on adaptation platforms 318 : engaging with stakeholders, identifying relevant information and knowledge, effective presentation and linking platforms across sectors, scales and platforms. Nevertheless, funding and sustaining a platform and technical, structural and design elements of an adaptation platform were also mentioned as challenges.

Step C: Identifying adaptation options

6. For priority sectors, a range of adaptation options is considered, consistent with the results of sectoral risk assessments and taking into account good practices and measures

Detailed risk and/or vulnerability assessments have been used by 25 Member States to identify adaptation options for at least a majority of priority sectors. The frequency with which different sectors are addressed is shown in Figure IX-6. In addition to those sectors specified in the figure, small numbers of Member States have addressed a wide range of “Other” individual sectors or themes, including: coastal; desertification; disaster risk management; economy; finance; ICT networks; infrastructure; insurance; land use; maritime; mountains; natural environment; society; soil; spatial planning; tourism; urban; and waste management. Six Member States (FR, NL, PL, PT, RO, SK) were identified as having assessed all priority sectors.

Figure IX-6. Risk assessments and adaptation options identified for priority sectors 320

The selection of adaptation options appears to be based on robust methods (e.g. multi-criteria analyses and/or stakeholder consultations, see Box 5) in 24 Member States, which have also identified priority actions per sector. Four Member States have yet to progress robust identification and prioritisation of adaptation options.

There has been less progress in coordinating disaster risk management and climate adaptation. Mechanisms are in place to ensure coherence between the two policies in only 10 Member States, although are in progress in 13 of the other countries (see Figure IX-7 below).

7. Dedicated and adequate funding resources have been identified and made available to implement adaptation action

Consistent funding is available for the implementation of adaptation actions to increase climate resilience in vulnerable sectors and in cross-cutting ways (e.g. national scenarios and climate services, capacity building, website) in only nine Member States (DE, DK, EE, ES, FR, LT, PT, RO, SE), but adaptation is financed in at least some sectors in all of the other countries, with one exception. The lack of funding that is specifically labelled for adaptation is also reflected in the fact that only 14 Member States include budget allocations in their NAS or NAP. 322

Step D: Implementing adaptation action

8. Climate change adaptation is mainstreamed into priority and key national planning and sectoral policymaking

The country fiches identify that climate adaptation has been considered in the national frameworks for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in 21 Member States. However, only 15 Member States consider climate adaptation in Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).

Only nine Member States (CZ, FR, HU, LU, LV, NL, PT, RO, UK) have taken climate change impacts and projections into account in national disaster risk management plans and associated preparedness/prevention strategies. This is reflective of the current state of play in relation to coordination of disaster risk management and climate adaptation (see Point 6 above and Figure IX-7 below). Box 6 provides a selection of examples of good practice.

Figure IX-7. Coordination of disaster risk management plans with adaptation, and consideration of climate projections

A total of 15 Member States 327 have land use, spatial, urban and maritime planning policies that explicitly address climate impacts, and require or encourage adaptation.

Only six Member States (BE, DE, FI, SE, SK, UK) have national policy instruments that promote adaptation at sectoral level, in line with national priorities and in areas where adaptation is mainstreamed in EU policies. However, all but two of the other countries are promoting adaptation in certain sectors, with significant gaps in others (e.g. construction, energy, fisheries, health and industry) (see Figure IX-8). In addition to those sectors specified in the figure, small numbers of Member States are mainstreaming adaptation in a wide range of “Other” individual sectors include insurance or alternative policy instruments providing incentives for investments in risk prevention (DE and DK only).

Figure IX-8. Sectors in which national policy instruments promote adaptation

9. Climate change adaptation policies and measures are implemented

At least 22 Member States are implementing their NAS and/or NAP, albeit with gaps in key sectors or in some actions identified as priorities. In one Member State (FI), it is clear that the NAP and associated priorities are being implemented in a coordinated way.

Of those Member States that have progressed implementation, only 14 328 have cooperation mechanisms in place to foster and support adaptation at a local and subnational scale.

Half of the Member States have made little or no progress, as yet, in making procedures or guidelines available to assess the potential impact of climate change on major projects or programmes, and facilitate the choice of alternative options (e.g. green infrastructure). Thirteen Member States are involving stakeholders in the implementation of adaptation policies and measures.

Step E: Monitoring and evaluation

10. Systems are in place to monitor and report on climate change adaptation, including adaptation-related expenditures, via relevant indicators

A total of 16 Member States are undertaking some monitoring and reporting of adaptation activities. The extent differs to which these Member States are monitoring and reporting on: NAS and/or NAP implementation; integration of climate adaptation in sectoral policies; or regional, sub-national and local actions (see Figure IX-9).

Figure IX-9. The focus of adaptation monitoring and reporting being undertaken by Member States

11. An evaluation framework is in place to assess whether adaptation policy objectives are met and a periodic review of the adaptation strategy is planned

While 24 Member States have planned a periodic review of their NAS and/or NAP, stakeholders are actively involved in the assessment, evaluation and review of national adaptation policy in only 13 Member States. Nevertheless, the EEA reports that most countries have focused primarily on monitoring and reporting while the evaluation of adaptation policies has started recently in a handful of countries 329 .

An overview of monitoring and evaluation frameworks and a selection of good practices is provided in Box 7.

4.Conclusions

Overall, Member States have made good progress in developing a NAS and/or NAP, or are in the process of finalising them (three Member States are in the final stages of adopting a NAS). This progress suggests that there is a now a significantly higher baseline of preparedness and adaptation policy-making than in 2013, when the EU Adaptation Strategy was launched. It also suggests that the Strategy catalysed action in Member States and particularly in those that were in earlier stages of developing an adaptation policy. The EU’s facilitative role through providing guidance, funding research and adaptation action under the Strategy can be traced throughout the five steps of the adaptation policy cycle.

The aggregated scoreboard for the 28 Member States is provided in Figure IX-10 (below). It indicates a difference in progress by Member States across the five steps of the adaptation policy cycle. While most Member States have made good progress with the first three steps (A. Preparing the ground for adaptation; B. Assessing risk and vulnerabilities; and C. Identifying adaptation options), many have yet to implement adaptation actions and undertake monitoring and reporting. Larger Member States and those that adopted a NAS earlier than others (see Table IX-1 above) have made more progress. Progress in relation to some indicators is also influenced by administrative culture and geography. For instance, not all Member States wish to coordinate sectoral adaptation actions under a single strategy and the need for detailed transboundary arrangements is less relevant for more isolated Member States.

Conclusions on each step of the adaptation policy cycle are provided below:

Step A: Preparing the ground for adaptation

All MS have a basic governance structure for adaptation policy-making. Although some degree of vertical coordination is in place in almost all Member States to enable sub-national stakeholders to influence policy development and implementation, this does not seem to have a sectoral focus. Nevertheless, most country fiches indicate that a wide range of stakeholders have been consulted in the preparation of adaptation policies.

While the extent of transboundary cooperation, and whether it is driven by the NAS/NAP, varies between Member States, almost all are planning to address common challenges with relevant countries; invariably with regard to water. It is clear that international initiatives (e.g. the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, and the Alpine Convention), EU initiatives (e.g. the macro-regional strategies) and EU-funded projects are important in helping to prepare the ground for cooperation.

Step B: Assessing risks and vulnerabilities 

Climate change scenarios and projections are widely available at national level. They are being used in most Member States to undertake sound, centrally-coordinated assessments of climate vulnerabilities, risks, and future economic, social and environmental impacts, with other Member States making progress in this respect.

While most Member States have included actions related to knowledge in their NAS and have identified adaptation knowledge gaps, there seems to be limited activity to address these gaps in almost half of the Member States.

Adaptation-related data (e.g. climate projections, vulnerability and risk assessments, adaptation tools) are available to at least some stakeholders in almost all Member States, and disseminated by a majority of them via a national web-based platform. However, coordination of associated capacity-building activities is less advanced and established in fewer than half of Member States.

Step C: Identifying adaptation options

Most Member States have used detailed vulnerability and/or risk assessments in combination with robust methods (e.g. multicriteria analyses and/or stakeholder consultations) to prioritise sectoral adaptation options. However, notably, less than half of Member States have mechanisms in place to coordinate disaster risk management and climate adaptation.