FEDARENE at the launch of the Community of Practice of the EU Mission Adaptation

What is the EU Mission Adaptation to Climate Change?

In September 2021, the European Commission launched 5 EU Missions to tackle the main environmental and socio-economical challenges faced by European citizens. This new cross-cutting approach is now reflected in all EU research and innovation activities and fundings.

The Mission Adaptation to climate change contributes to putting the EU’s adaptation strategy into practice by helping the regions to:

• Better understand the climate risks they are and will be confronted with in the future;
• Develop their pathways to be better prepared and cope with the changing climate;
• Test and deploy on the ground innovative solutions needed to build resilience.

Concretely, it aims at supporting at least 150 European regions and communities to become climate resilient by 2030 and will deliver 75 large-scale demonstrations of systemic transformations to prepare for major climate-induced hazards.

Regions and regional actors have been invited to support to and benefit from the Mission Adaptation by becoming Charter signatories and Friends of the Mission (see also FEDARENE becomes Friend of the Mission on Adaptation).

The launch of the Community of Practice of the EU Mission Adaptation

The first meeting on the Community of Practice of the Mission Adaptation to Climate Change took place on January 26 in Brussels.

The objectives of the meeting were to:

• Kick-off the Missions’ Community of Practice;
• Allow for exchanges between Mission Board members, Charter signatories and Friends of the Mission;
• Introduce the Mission Implementation Platform to the Charter signatories and Friends;
• Present the analysis of replies provided by the regional and local authorities when submitting their charter applications;
• Invite regional and local authorities to discuss their main challenges in terms of financing, citizen engagement, and access to data.

The conference was opened by Clara de la Torre (Deputy Director General – DG CLIMA & Manager of Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change), Connie Hedegaard (Chair of the Mission Board), and Normunds Popens (Deputy Director General – DG REGIO).

The Mission Secretariat of DG CLIMA highlighted the results of the survey on regional developments concerning climate adaptation followed by a presentation of the Climate-ADAPT website held by the European Environment Agency (EEA). During three workshops on access to data, financing, and citizen engagement the participants could exchange and address their needs and feedback to the Mission Secretariat. Several projects were able to present their achievements and upcoming opportunities during these workshops such as CLIMAXX, PEERS, AGORA, and TransformAr.

Key takeaways from FEDARENE

FEDARENE was present during this event as Friend of the Mission. It was a good opportunity to meet and exchange with Mission Board members, Charter signatories, and Friends of the Mission.

The fruitful discussions with participating European regions showed that the progress made on climate adaptation varies widely and covers all steps of the adaptation process from identifying adaptation needs to pathway development and implementing solutions. But besides that all regions are facing challenges and have addressed needs for support on their way towards climate resilience.

A lot of different European initiatives and projects are offering know-how and support for regions and communities. The amount of available information and opportunities might be overwhelming for regions. We are already addressing this issue and supporting regions and communities to find the best support for their current situation, for example within the FEDARENE working group on Climate Adaptation, the REGILIENCE open training sessions or within the Mission Implementation Platform.

REGILIENCE and its sister-projects also took the opportunity to exchange and meet in person:

We thank everyone for the fruitful exchanges and look forward to our future productive collaboration.

Check out FEDARENE’s Climate Adaptation Working Group to find out more about our work on adaptation to climate change.