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Cascading climate impacts: a new factor in European policy-making

  • Mikael Hildén
  • Glada Lahn
  • Timothy R. Carter
  • Richard J. T. Klein
  • Ilona M. Otto
  • Benjamin Pohl
  • Christopher P. O. Reyer
  • Fabien Tondel

As the EU revisits and updates its climate adaptation strategy and deals with fast-changing external relations, it is essential that policy-makers consider the risks of cross-border and cascading impacts and the Union’s range of influence for mitigating and preparing for them. In this short policy brief, the newly launched CASCADES project sets out the challenge.

Key messages

  • Impacts of climate change – such as droughts, floods, wildfires and sea-level rise – can have knock-on effects that cross borders and continents. With its strong links to the rest of the world, Europe is exposed not only to the regional effects of a changing climate, but also the fallout from those materialising elsewhere.
  • The effects can cascade and sometimes escalate through security relations, international trade, financial markets, international aid operations as well as migration. However, Europeans are only beginning to recognize the risks, and possible opportunities, associated with these impacts.
  • To assess these risks and formulate effective responses demands the involvement of experts and decision-makers in areas such as political science, market regulation and banking who are not normally involved in climate policy discussions.
  • The European Green Deal and the EU’s actions on adaptation to climate change must recognize cross-border climate impacts and prepare to integrate risk management measures into a much wider group of policies, ranging from trade to welfare.

Find out more about the CASCADES project here.

 

[This description was extracted from the policy brief.]

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