Zusammenfassung:
Whatever the degree of success we achieve in curbing carbon emissions, the climate will be more inhospitable in the coming decades. Extreme weather events are already becoming the new normal. Therefore, along with renewing our mitigation efforts, we need to adapt, which basically entails enhancing our preparedness and our resilience in order to preserve our way of life. This will require generosity on the part of developed economies toward less developed ones, creative financial approaches leveraging the strengths of the public and private sectors, insurers working in lockstep with municipalities and educators, and, most of all, a realization that adaptation is an investment where the benefits not only outweigh the cost, but also accrue locally every time disaster strikes. Adaptation will also require research, innovation, and lots of widely shared data. The 2025 EconPol Europe Annual Conference, on whose proceedings this policy brief is mostly based, approached the need to adapt from three perspectives: adaptation strategies to build a climate-resilient European Union; adaptation to climate change in developing countries; and migration as an adaptation strategy.