For more than 15 years, ICLEI Europe has supported cities, towns and regions to develop adaptation and resilience strategies and action plans, and to integrate them into statutory planning processes, ultimately improving cities’ ability to safeguard citizens from the consequences of climate change induced, man-made and natural hazards.
This document aims to provide recommendations to the EU’s Strategic Agenda 2024 - 2029 in order to mainstream resilience and adaptation across various policy areas and governance layers. These recommendations are building on ICLEI Europe’s decades-long experience, as well as the goals of the EU Adaptation Strategy, the assessment of the data published in Copernicus’ European State of the Climate Report 2023 and drawing on the European Environment Agency's first-ever European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA).
The recommendations formulated in this document emphasise that building resilience is a multifaceted and multilevel matter that encompasses different sectors of society and layers of government. In order to achieve its resilience goals by mid-century, the European Union should ensure that i) resilience is treated as a comprehensive issue that goes beyond climate adaptation, ii) diverse policies include resilience as a cross-cutting topic to measure their achievements, giving particular attention to water, iii) multilevel governance models are established to accelerate resilience processes and increase their impact, iv) resilience is considered an international priority and that collaboration is not limited by administrative boundaries.