Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe ... - MemoFin.fr

Introduction1.2 Scope and link to other EU and EEAactivities and products1.2.1 ScopeThis report provides comprehensive indicator‐basedinformation covering all main categories of climateimpacts (with some exceptions as described abovein Section 1.1). Where feasible, indicators cover allof Europe (the 32 member countries of the EEA).However, for some indicator categories for whichno Europe-wide data were available (e.g. forecosystem‐related indicators), indicators havebeen selected and presented for fewer countries.Furthermore, some indicators have only limitedgeographical relevance (e.g. glaciers) and in suchcases the aim was for full coverage of the relevantcountries.Key terms used to assess and communicate theeffects of climate change emphasise adverseimpacts (e.g. vulnerability and risk; see Section 1.7),which may wrongly suggest that all impactsare adverse, while in fact some impacts maybe beneficial. The emphasis in this report onadverse impacts has two reasons. Firstly, andmost importantly, adverse and beneficial impactshave rather different policy implications. Adverseimpacts generally call for anticipatory, plannedadaptation (e.g. increasing risk management effortsin order to maintain current risk levels underprojected climate change), whereas the benefits ofclimate change can often be brought in by reactiveadaptation (e.g. reducing risk management effortsthat turn out to be no longer needed after observingclimate change). Secondly, on balance most climatechange impacts presented in this report areprojected to be adverse. However, the level of theimpacts depends on the time horizon and scenario.1.2.2 Data sourcesThere is no reporting of climate change impacts andvulnerability data and information from EU MemberStates to the European Commission or EEA. Someinformation is available in national communicationsto the United Nations Framework Convention on ClimateChange (UNFCCC), but this cannot be used forpreparing comparable quantitative indicators acrossEEA member countries (see also Section 1.3.1).Thus the indicators presented in this report arebased on data from in situ and satellite monitoringprogrammes, from national and EU researchprogrammes and from a few global databases.Various EU research programmes (e.g. Sixth andSeventh Framework Programmes (FP6 and FP7,respectively) ( 5 )) have developed knowledgeover the past years and information from theseprogrammes has been included to the extent feasiblein this report. However, there are still many gapsin the data and coverage across Europe and overtime. Chapter 6 gives an overview of main data gapsand needs. Section 7.2 provides an (incomplete)overview of those research projects that havecontributed significantly to the indicators presentedin this report.1.2.3 Links to other reportsThe report builds on various previous EEA reports,including the 'State of the Environment and Outlookreport 2010' and its thematic assessments on climatechange and on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation(EEA, 2010a; b), a technical report on natural (andtechnological) disasters (EEA, 2011) and variousreports from the JRC, WHO/Europe and ECDC.Furthermore, this report is consistent with thefollowing EEA reports published in 2012:• Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe(EEA, 2012);• 'Water resources in Europe in the context ofvulnerability' (to be published autumn 2012);• 'State of coasts in Europe' (in preparation).The report furthermore aims to achieve consistency,to the extent feasible, with the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Reporton 'Managing the Risks of Extreme Events andDisasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation(SREX)' (IPCC, 2012), the IPCC Fifth AssessmentReport (AR5) (see Box 1.1), a 'PESETA II' reportfrom JRC (which however was not yet publishedby autumn 2012), a follow-up from 'PESETA I'(Projection of Economic impacts of climate changein Sectors of the European Union based onboTtom‐up Analysis) (Ciscar et al., 2009, 2011), anda forthcoming WHO/Europe report on 'The healtheffects of climate change in the European Union:evidence for action' ( 6 ).( 5 ) See http://ec.europa.eu/research/environment/index_en.cfm?pg=climate.( 6 ) See http://ec.europa.eu/health/indicators/other_indicators/environment/index_en.htm.32 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012