Online Roundtable: Climate change adaptation


Venue

Online - find registration link below

25 June 2020




In addition to climate mitigation, climate adaptation measures have become increasingly important when addressing the impacts of climate change. Although these measures are now well-known, as climate adaptation plans are developed at local, regional and national levels, a gap remains between vision, planning, and implementation. This is particularly the case in cross-border regions. 

In an effort to enhance stakeholders’ knowledge of the implementation barriers linked to climate adaptation solutions, ESPON organized a virtual roundtable dedicated to climate change adaptation, on 25 June 2020 in Brussels. The event targeted European, national, subnational and local policymakers that execute sustainable territorial development strategies, interested in climate adaptation implementation in the Benelux context.

The roundtable focussed on the implementation of climate change adaptation measures in the peri-urban Eurodelta Meuse, Scheldt and Rhine regions. Particular attention was paid to plans dealing with urban heat island effect, droughts, and excessive runoff and erosion.

All targeted regions have implemented some good practices. Brussels tries to increase green spaces in the city as one of the solutions reducing the urban heat island effect. Flanders has implemented a 4-level escalation scheme on drought and water scarcity which allows fast response in tackling drought hazards. The Walloon case presents good examples of prevention and correction of erosion damages.

Conclusions

The roundtable presentations and discussions showed a need for European cross-border cooperation in elaborating adaptation measures and in learning from mutual experiences. There is a need to make data transparent, which serves a good input for raising the awareness of climate change within different scales of governance, and with various stakeholders in the public, civic and business spheres.

In order to improve implementation with this broad range of stakeholders on various levels, there is a need to:

a) further enhance the general mindset for action,

b) improve collaboration on specific cases, and

c) guarantee consistency with related policy domains.

Further ESPON evidence and outreach activities (especially with regard to a and c) could play a key role to improve implementation on climate change adaptation measures.

Presentations

See below all video presentations starting with a post-event podcast. You can also download the presentations in pdf.

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Documents