Horizon Europe Mission: A Climate Resilient Europe

Horizon Europe adopts five mission areas as part of its commitment to solve some of the largest challenges facing our world. Under these areas, five missions are proposed that will further empower the goals of the European Green Deal, Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the Sustainable Development Goals. Under the mission area for Adaptation to climate change including societal transformation, the proposed mission is called ‘A Climate Resilient Europe: Prepare Europe for climate disruptions and accelerate the transformation to a climate resilient and just Europe by 2030’. In this post we lay-out the background and aims of this mission.

Mission background: A climate resilient Europe

With the global climate crisis looming over us all, urgent action is more necessary now than ever. Without a radical reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the planet will see a devastating 3-4°C temperature rise before the end of the century, leading to destabilization of immense terrestrial forces (e.g. hurricanes, tsunamis, climate change) and increasingly drastic socio-economic consequences, in Europe and across the globe. The impact of the increasing stress placed on natural and human systems has already been felt, as extreme climate and weather events are occurring more frequently and with greater severity. Even after a complete cessation of emissions, additional warming is inevitable, making mitigation and adaptation essential aspects of climate risk management. ‘Climate Resilient Europe’ responds to the entanglement between environment, society and human health that has been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Mission notes that the ongoing impacts of living through the pandemic will shadow in comparison to the shockwaves of climate change that are predicted in the near-future. Therefore, the Mission aims to learn from the pandemic by addressing the need for early, coordinated action to future climate crises. In doing so, ‘Climate Resilient Europe’, will take a vital step in breaking this vicious circle of living on environmental debt and restore planetary health. Climate Resilient Europe will build on and contribute further to the achievements of the European Green Deal and Sustainable Development Goals. It will prepare Europe to address unavoidable impacts on climate and accelerate the transformation to a climate-resilient Europe.

The goal

Through three objectives, this Mission aims to create opportunities from the challenging task of adapting to climate change. It has a strong emphasis on working with citizens, communities and wider regions on green innovation, transformative adaptation and resilience forging. Suggestion: The European mission aims to create opportunities to adapt and challenge climate change through three objectives (Fig. xx). The objectives have a strong emphasis on working with citizens, communities and wider regions on green innovation, transformative adaptation and resilience forging.

By 2030, the Mission will:

1: Prepare Europe for climate disruptions

This objective focuses on assisting citizens, communities and regions to better prepare for climate change related shocks and disruptions, such as heatwaves, forest fires, droughts, floods, storms, and diseases. They will focus on providing all necessary expertise and training to facilitate local communities and regions in the adoption of climate risk management and community-based emergency plans, while incentivizing ongoing rigorous monitoring and evaluation of this process.
Target: By 2030, all local administrative units and regions will have access to climate risk profiles and enhanced early warning systems for all relevant risks, will have adopted comprehensive climate risk management plans, and will have community infrastructure and services that are safe and operable and accessible under critical conditions.

2: Accelerate transformation to a resilient future

This objective is focused on accelerating the transformation to a climate resilient, just and prosperous Europe, within safe planetary boundaries. 200 regions and communities (accelerators) will be supported in developing a vision for their transformations towards resilience and sustainability. These partner regions and communities, ‘accelerators’, will be assisted in co-designing transformative solutions and co-creating transformations. The Mission will support accelerators through mobilizing funds and resources, co-implementing and orchestrating a portfolio of innovation actions, and co-assessing the ongoing developments within these actions.
Target: By 2030, 200 European communities and regions will have developed their own transformative vision; co-created adaptation pathways; codesigned and tested actionable solutions; and created favourable conditions for societal transformations towards climate resilience.

3: Build deep resilience

This objective will provide 100 deep demonstrations of large-scale resilience through scaling-up successful innovations tested by pilot accelerators at regional and/or community levels. To achieve this the Mission will create impact at scale by conducting thorough reviews of the most promising accelerators, providing further support (for example, coaching, knowledge transfer, twinning), and assisting them in implementing successful transformative solutions at large scale. Value will be created across borders by identifying issues that would benefit from cross-border collaboration and facilitating and strengthening new partnerships.

Target: By 2030, 100 deep demonstrations have scaled-up actionable solutions that have triggered societal transformation, building deep climate-resilience and creating value shared across borders.

The climate resilient Europe aimed for includes three fundamental and interrelated dimensions and principles. These act as guides throughout, ensuring the objectives meet the end-goal of climate resilience. The dimensions and principles are: resilience of environmental systems, committed to long-term sustainability; resilience of social and economic systems, committed to equity, social and gender justice; and resilience of political systems, committed to inclusiveness, deliberation, shared values, solidarity and respect for diversity.

Through achieving these objectives, the Mission employs an integrated and systemic approach to risk management and resilience building. The Mission not only seeks to advance adaption to climate change with resilient communities and regions across Europe, but to undergo this transition in a sustainable, fair and democratic manner.

Read more about Horizon Europe

Read overview of all Horizon Europe Missions 

Visit the European Commission’s A Climate Resilient Europe Mission page