Executive summary

The European Commission adopted in 2013 a Communication on an EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change (EC, 2013). The advancement of adaptation across Europe and the implementation of the Strategy requires knowledge gaps to be further addressed. This report supports this process and acts as an input towards the European Union’s 7^th Environment Action Programme to 2020, and particularly to Priority Objective 5 ‘To improve the knowledge and evidence base for Union environment policy’. This report is also a key element in the implementation of the EEA’s road-map for adaptation (EEA, 2013).

Monitoring, reporting and evaluation of adaptation interventions is essential to assess the extend to which interventions are effective, efficient, and equitable. This also allows to understand and learn across countries which adaptation actions work (or not), in what contexts and why. However, there are a number of reasons why measuring progress (e.g. through indicators) for adaptation is challenging: adaptation is context specific, cross-cutting all sectors of the economy, characterised by long timeframes and uncertainty as climate change will unfold over many years, and does not have prescribed targets.

Monitoring, reporting and evaluation is addressed in the Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change. The status and progress of adaptation in the EU will be assessed based on member countries reporting (e.g. EU Monitoring Mechanism Regulation, National Communications to the UNFCCC), an adaptation preparedness scoreboard including indicators for measuring member countries’ level of readiness, and other sources of information such as this report or the recently launched OECD survey on ‘Approaches and tools used to support decision-making for climate change adaptation’.

This report provides up-to-date and targeted information to support the development, implementation and evalutation of national adaptation policies and measures as response to climate change. It aims to assist European policymakers and practitioners who are coordinating adaptation across or within particular sectors. It is therefore of particular relevance to public authorities, but is also of interest to water, energy, transport utilities and to other private stakeholders involved in adaptation.

This report draws on results of a self-assessment survey on national adaptation policy processes in Europe. In May 2013 the survey was sent out by the EEA to authorities in countries responsible for coordinating adaptation at national level (the EEA32 member countries and Croatia in July 2013 as a new EU member state and EEA member country). Thirty EEA member countries provided, on a voluntary basis, their responses by autumn 2013 (a few countries submitted their answers at a later stage). Thanks to the high response rate from European countries this report presents a unique collection of information and the most comprehensive overview of adaptation policy processes in Europe to date. The findings from the self-assessment survey reflects the views of authorities responsible for coordinating adaptation at national level.

In the context of this report, ‘adaptation’ refers to actions responding to current and future climate change impacts and vulnerabilities (as well as to the climate variability that occurs in the absence of climate change) within ongoing and expected societal change. It means not only protecting against negative impacts of climate change, but also building resilience and taking advantage of any benefits it may bring. The earlier we plan adaptation responses, the better equipped we will be to cope with climate change-related challenges.

European countries are aware of the need for adaptation to climate change and up to now, 20 European countries have adopted a National Adaptation Strategy (NAS) and 17 have developed a National Adaptation Plan (NAP). More than half of European countries have made progress in identifying and assessing adaptation options and ten report that they are in the implementation stage of the adaptation policy process.

The results from the self-assessment survey answered by 30 European countries suggest the following key findings. The results are further described in Section 2 of this report under eight Key Topics, which are illustrated in Figure 1.1 below. Figure 1.2 below provides an illustrative schematic overview of adaptation policy progress as reported by European countries on Question 12 of the self-assessment survey¹.

Figure 1.1 Illustrative schematic overview of the eight Key Topics in connection with the policy cycle (Key Topics in black; stages of policy cycle in green)

Key findings from the self-assessment surveys submitted by European countries:

1. Respondents report an increase in the public and policy awareness of adaptation, progress in the development of the knowledge base, involvement of stakeholders and transnational cooperation.
2. The sectors that have attracted the greatest attention throughout Europe in terms of risk and vulnerability assessment at a national level are (in this order) agriculture, water, forestry, human health, biodiversity, energy and tourism.
3. The water, agriculture and forestry sectors are reported to be the most advanced in terms of implementing portfolios of adaptation measures at all levels of administration. With regards to planning, the biodiversity sector is reported to be the most addressed.
4. Implementing adaptation is most often carried out by applying “soft” measures (e.g. providing information or mainstreaming). Project-based support was indicated to be the most important financing mechanism currently in place for implementing adaptation. Actual budget for implementing adaptation has been allocated most explicitly in the water and agriculture sectors.
5. The importance of stakeholder involvement throughout the adaptation process is widely recognised. There is, however, scope for collecting and sharing more experiences of active forms of involvement. There is also, so far, limited experience in involving stakeholders in implementation, monitoring and evaluation of adaptation policies.
6. Forerunners are currently implementing either a monitoring, a reporting or an evaluation (MRE) scheme and many more countries are initiating MRE schemes. A variety of approaches have been used in MRE, for example, a review by an independent body and self-assessment by sectors as well as indicators.
7. Half of European countries report considering transnational cooperation in national adaptation policy processes. Transnational cooperation in adaptation has often emerged with the support of European funding instruments and in the context of established cooperation fora such as European regional conventions.
8. Progress in adaptation depends on a number of success factors and their interconnection. For example effective coordination among authorities supports the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders by ensuring the availability of consistent and reliable information, clarity of information concerning roles and responsibilities.
9. The barriers to adaptation are not simply the inverse of the success factors. The lack of resources (e.g. time, money, equipment) and uncertainties are considered by European countries as the most important barriers. Uncertainties is a common feature to all levels of advancement in policy making, which can benefit from embedding processes that focus on learning from experiences, reviewing progress and policy objectives, and encourage innovative experimentation.
10. To support adaptation further in European countries, more information is needed on costs and benefits of adaptation, risks and uncertainties, and vulnerability at local level and availability of data for monitoring and evaluation purposes. Coordination of adaptation activities could be improved further by learning about the diversity in coordination mechanisms across countries and by sharing experiences and lessons learned.

Beyond these findings, there are a number of issues that will shape the future of adaptation at national levels across Europe. These agenda-settings issues include specifically: the governance at national level to adaptation in Europe; the implementation of adaptation strategies; the monitoring, reporting and evaluation of adaptation; the development of appraisal tools for adaptation options; the mutual learning between different groups of actors, regions or sectors; and the importance of communicating adaptation. These issues are characterised by knowledge gaps, which in order to be filled and policy-relevant will require specific and dedicated attention.

Figure 1.2 Illustrative schematic overview of adaptation policy progress as reported by European countries (Question 12)

[1] Question 12: In what stage of the adaptation policy process is your country in?
☐…Adaptation process has not started  
☐…Agenda setting (i.e. adaptation is politically recognised as important) 
☐…Formulation (i.e. responsible actors respond by formulating adaptation policies)
☐…Decision (i.e. policymakers have adopted an adaptation policy)
☐…Implementation (i.e. measures foreseen in the policy are being implemented)
☐…Monitoring and evaluation (i.e. review and updates of policy/actions)