Floods, heat waves or fires: climate change is already a security and economic challenge for the EU climate and environment

Dana’s tragedy in Valencia will resonate for a long time in Brussels, especially in the coming weeks, which are crucial for the formation of the EU’s new executive. From this Monday, the candidates nominated for Commissioners will be subject to questions from the European Parliament, who will have to confirm or reject them. These include the team that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has designed for environmental issues, under the direction of Spanish Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera, who will also be heard in the middle of the month. Observers warn that it is a crucial moment to measure the degree of Europe’s true commitment in the fight against climate change not just by words but by actions.

Alex Mason, head of climate and energy at WWF EU, says the flooding in Valencia and neighboring areas is “another tragic reminder of the grim reality we are living through.” “And they are also a message to the EU in front of the new Commission so that it does not press the pause button on climate action and nature conservation,” he added.

The devastation caused by Dana in Valencia has shocked Brussels, but not surprised. There has been no report published on EU security in recent years in which climate change does not appear as a major factor of social, economic and even geopolitical risk. The last is that prepared by former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö on how to strengthen Europe’s civil and military preparedness, which was presented the morning after the terrible night of Danao and when the full magnitude of the tragedy was not yet known. Was not there. The word “climate change” appears 123 times in 165 pages.

“Instead of treating security and climate considerations as competing or mutually exclusive priorities, both human and natural threats must be addressed holistically,” Niinistö emphasizes. The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, has also repeatedly warned of the geopolitical risk of rising temperatures and increasing droughts and floods, which are already causing migratory flows: “Climate change is clearly One of the biggest challenges to stability is the security of our neighborhood and our borders,” he says.

According to a recent analysis by the European Parliament, published just weeks before the Spanish tragedy, over the past 30 years, floods in the EU alone have affected 5.5 million people, caused 3,000 deaths and caused economic damage of more than 170 billion euros. Is. More than 200 people died in severe flooding in Belgium and Germany in 2021. Two years later, in 2023, new flooding in Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Greece, Italy and France caused more than €23 billion in damage. Now, the European Executive is preparing, shortly, to receive a new bill for the Spanish disaster, which no one dares to specify yet, but whose risks will also be in the billions, in terms of lives lost. Will be beyond.

“In just a few months, floods have affected Eastern and Central Europe, Italy and now Spain. “This is the dramatic reality of climate change,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, distressed, as she presented the study alongside Niinistö, who, like many others before him, said Europe was rapidly increasing preparedness. Warns of shortage. Unpredictable and terrible nature resulting from human actions. The European Commission recalled after the Valencia tragedy that 2023 was also the year in which Europe, a continent that is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, suffered its biggest fires ever, due to the fact that Even though it was equal to one. During the hottest years in history, temperatures soared. Furthermore, it has repeatedly warned that failure to act now on climate change could cost the EU 7% of GDP by the end of the century.

Despite this, the environmental ambition of the European executive has been repeatedly hindered by the fears in many capitals (and political forces in Brussels) about the political consequences of a true revolution in the way of life that climate change adaptation would require. Europe is rapidly moving towards the negative extreme right. To such an extent that in the new mandate received by the German Ursula von der Leyen, there is no longer even talk of a “green” transition, but of a “clean” transition. A euphemism that seems more acceptable in the current political climate, which has also led to the fact that the proposal made by the Commission at the beginning of the year to set greenhouse gas emissions as a 2040 target has not yet been transformed into an official mandate. It has happened. Twenty-seven overall have declined by “at least” 90% compared to 1990 levels.

The increasingly right-wing political landscape is also reflected in Brussels, where there is a Commission with a strong conservative majority (14 of the 26 proposed Commissioners, apart from Von der Leyen, are from the European People’s Party), which has sought to overturn or slow down ) environmental laws have declined several times in recent years), joined by another from the ultra-conservative and reformist ECR of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and from the ranks of Hungarian Victor’s Patriots for Europe. Orban and French Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile, in the European Parliament, which must now approve von der Leyen’s team, the right and extreme right have already formed several coalitions to overcome opposition from traditional pro-European parties.

Steve Trent, CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation, criticizes, “We are at a critical moment in the fight against the climate crisis, but our leaders are sleeping.” “The 1.5C target was agreed at the Paris climate talks, but under current policies we are on target for a minimum of 2.6C – and that is only if they are actually met. Every day we delay, every fraction of a degree we allow global temperatures to rise, is a direct threat to the future of life on Earth. The more we allow fossil fuels to expand, the more we take from the bank of nature without giving anything back, the more serious and frequent such events will become,” he said in a statement issued after the Spanish tragedy and ahead of the next COP29. The statement warned. in Baku (Azerbaijan), just before the end of the hearings for the members of the future European Executive.

“The hearing is going to be a decisive test for the scale of the EU’s ambition in climate action in the coming years,” says Chiara Martinelli, director of CAN Europe. For this umbrella organization of environmental NGOs across the European continent, it is essential that the passage of commissioners appointed by the European Parliament “do not echo empty rhetoric.” “We want to hear real plans for real action,” says Sven Harmeling, CAN’s climate manager, during the two-week hearing in Brussels.