Climate Policies

Climate action policies aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance resilience to climate impacts, and ensure a sustainable future. These measures safeguard EU citizens’ well-being, protect vital ecosystems, and create opportunities for a green economy.

Key Connections

• • Nature-Based Solutions: Climate policies promote restoring forests, dry grasslands, wetlands, peatlands, and coastal marine ecosystems such as seagrass meadows, oyster banks, and salt marshes. These habitats are critical for carbon sequestration, buffering against flooding and storm surges, preserving biodiversity, and enhancing ecosystem resilience.
  • Energy transition: Transitioning to renewable energy reduces emissions from burning fossil fuels, contributing to air pollution, habitat degradation, and climate warming. For Europe, this means accelerating clean energy adoption while ensuring that renewable energy projects—like wind or solar farms—are planned to avoid negative impacts on sensitive ecosystems.
  • Conservation-focused adaptation and resilience: Policies fostering Ecosystem Services increasingly integrate conservation into climate adaptation strategies as a Nature-Based Solution. Restoring floodplains, rewilding rivers, and preserving coastal wetlands are natural buffers against extreme heat, flooding, and rising sea levels. These measures strengthen ecological and community resilience while safeguarding biodiversity.

Facts

• • Rising temperatures: Europe is warming faster than the global average. The summer of 2023 broke temperature records, threatening ecosystems, agriculture, and human health.
  • Extreme weather: In 2022, extreme events like floods, wildfires, and droughts caused €43.9 billion in economic losses across the EU.
  • Carbon emissions: The EU accounts for around 7% of global emissions, with the energy and agriculture sectors being key contributors.

State of Climate in Europe – EEA

Action

Combating climate change requires accelerating the energy transition, integrating nature-based solutions, and transforming land-use practices. Policies such as the European Green Deal and the Climate Law commit the EU to carbon neutrality by 2050 but achieving this goal demands innovation, investment, and public engagement.