Europe must adapt to climate change, says Brussels

EU Observer: Europe must get used to the effects of global warming in the near future and adapting to climate change should be included in European Union policy making, EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas has said in a new report.

Rising temperatures will scorch the area around the Mediterranean and melt Alpine and Scandinavian snows and glaciers. This in turn will flood low-lying coastal zones around the Continent and eventually result in a water shortage, according to the gloomy picture painted by the European Commission in a consultation report on Friday (29 June). "In some places and for some people it is literally a question of adapt or die for people as well as for businesses," Mr Dimas told journalists in Brussels at the launch of the report, 'The Green Paper on Adapting to climate change in Europe: option for EU action'.

A certain degree of climate change is inevitable throughout this century and beyond, even if global efforts to mitigate the problem over the next decades prove successful, argues the report. Learning to anticipate and work against the effects of global warming could limit climate change and save money in the long run at the local, regional, national and on the EU level, it says.

Mr Dimas argued that adaptation and mitigation – the reduction of harmful greenhouse gasses – should be taken into account in all EU policies. Each European citizen will be affected one way or another and the widest possible involvement of all members of society is needed, said the report.

Europe has the human capacity, technical skills and financial resources to take a strong leadership role also for adaptation across the world, said Mr Dimas.

"The [industrialised] world – mainly Europe and the United States and some other developed countries - historically have contributed to the creation to the greenhouse phenomenon and the effects are going to be felt more in the developing countries – especially in the least developed of them," he stated. "So it is obvious that they ask us to help them face some of the impacts that we have caused."

Mr Dimas told EUobserver after the press conference that although climate change had a role to play in causing recent and current humanitarian crises in countries such as the Ivory Coast, Somalia and Sudan where there is no longer enough water for all, similar crises would not happen in Europe. "Europe is quite aware of the possible effects of climate change," he said, adding that EU moves on climate change, energy and adaptation would prevent such crises emerging in the bloc.

However, the commission is particularly concerned about Northern Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan where there is large population growth and where climate change will have a great effect. There will be "a big problem" of more and more immigrants seeking to come to Europe because they cannot get food and water, warned Mr Dimas.