With the effects of climate change already perceptible, the European Commission believes that it is possible to take a certain number of adaptation measures at EU level right now to tackle the problem. The Commission’s view is that this can be done on the basis of currently available instruments and policies. This is what it developed in its green paper adopted on 27 June 2007. In it, the EU executive proposed a series of options.

The green paper highlights the effects of climate change that are already being perceived – on water resources, ecosystems and biodiversity, food (dangers of famines), coastal areas (rise in the level of oceans) and human and animal health. It underlines that the phenomenon poses a double challenge, namely that it can only be countered, in the medium and long term, by considerable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and a gradual shift towards low carbon economies and, more rapidly, by introducing adaptation measures in a reactive manner where its effects are already making themselves be felt, and in a preventative manner where they have already been identified or can already be anticipated.

The adjustment at European level will benefit from an integrated and coordinated approach involving in some cases the cross-border management of the dossiers, including the management of water basins. The single market and the common policies have their share of the burden to bear, including agriculture, social cohesion, rural and regional development, fisheries and research. Community solidarity should also play in full to assist the regions most threatened, most disadvantaged and weak, via the Structural Funds. The integrated approach has four components:

1. Where there is enough information to prevent the damaging impact of climate change, adaptation can be strengthened and integrated into the current and future EU policies, especially by using the instruments available (EU funds)

2. At a global level, the Commission proposes to develop assistance programmes to help neighbouring and developing countries (the latter via the European Development Fund) to prevent the negative impacts of climate change

3. An integrated research approach must cover both the potential impacts and the cost-efficiency aspect of the adaptation measures

4. Climate change, says the Commission, has impacts on all economic sectors and concerns both citizens and all stakeholders (industries, NGOs, public authorities, private and public sectors) – all must therefore commit and take part in the consultation process to define specific and detailed actions. For this purpose, the Commission proposes creating a consultative European group for adaptation so as to encourage such participation.

The Commission will present more concrete proposals in early April 2009, just in time for the informal Environment Council of 14-15 April in Prague.