Europe is facing a growing combination of interconnected climate risks, with compound events increasingly affecting infrastructure, supply chains and the wider economy, Blaž Kurnik, head of the Climate Risk and Resilience Unit at the European Environment Agency (EEA), has told the Economist Enterprise Sustainability Week Europe Summit in Amsterdam.
Speaking during a presentation entitled Europe’s climate-risk map: where should business act first?, Kurnik identified southern Europe as a particular climate-risk “hotspot”, with a myriad of climate risks that are “cascading in other regions in Europe as well”.
Drought, flooding, heatwaves and wildfires are among the most visible risks facing the continent at present, the effect of which is magnified when certain hazards combine, such as during the recent summer heatwave season.
Economic losses associated with weather and climate extremes have accelerated in recent years – the past five years have represented 25% of the losses experienced since 1980 – while only 20% of the losses in the latest five-year period were insured, Kurnik noted.
“The rest is basically the cost to society,” he said.
Policy measures
Kurnik added that European policy remained largely reactive, with climate change accelerating ahead of policy and adaptation measures. While many EU member states have resilience policies in place, implementation is lagging.
“In Europe, and also globally, we are still in reactive mode,” he said. “The climate is changing faster than we are able to react to it through policy and the implementation of policy, and investment in adaptation.”
Competitiveness agenda
Resilience, he added, should be considered an important part of Europe’s competitiveness agenda.
“If it’s our goal to be competitive, and a continent that can actually compete globally, we need to focus on being resilient,” he said. “It’s very simple. If you are not resilient, you have damages every year, and you need to cover that by private or public financing. You cannot invest in innovation, because you’re basically just covering the cost of losses, which could be avoided.”
The Economist Enterprise Sustainability Week Europe Summit continues today (7 October) in Amsterdam. More information can be found here.
