By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Apr 15 2025 – The recent US court case that ordered three Greenpeace organisations to pay damages of over US$660 million to an oil and gas company was a stunning blow against civil society’s efforts to stop runaway climate change and environmental degradation. The verdict, following a trial independent witnesses assessed to be grossly unfair, came in reaction to Indigenous-led anti-pipeline protests. It’s vital for any prospects of tackling the climate crisis that Greenpeace’s appeal succeeds, because without civil society pressure, there’s simply no hope of governments and corporations taking the action required.

Civil society is more used to winning climate and environmental court cases than losing them. As CIVICUS’s 2025 State of Civil Society Report outlines, litigation has become a vital part of civil society’s strategy. Just last year, a group of Swiss women won a groundbreaking precedent in the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled the government was violating their rights by failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions. South Korea’s Constitutional Court found that the lack of emissions reduction targets breached young people’s constitutional rights. Other positive judgments came in countries including Ecuador, India and Italy. At the last count, climate lawsuits had been filed in 55 countries.

But fossil fuel companies have noticed civil society’s litigation successes and are also taking to the courts. They have the deep pockets needed to hire expensive lawyers and sustain legal actions over many draining years. Fossil fuel companies have filed over 150 lawsuits intended to silence criticism in the USA alone since 2012.

Protest restrictions

Civil society is doing all it can to demand climate action that matches the scale of the crisis, winning victories by combining tactics such as street protest, non-violent direct action and litigation, but it’s coming under attack. Peaceful protesters are being jailed and activists are facing violence in many countries. Alongside the chilling effect on protests of lawsuits such as the one against Greenpeace, governments in several countries are criminalising legitimate forms of protest. Globally, climate activists and defenders of environmental, land and Indigenous rights are among the groups most targeted for repression.

Security force violence and mass arrests and detentions, particularly of protesters, are in danger of becoming normalised. Last year in the Netherlands, authorities detained thousands for taking part in mass roadblock protests demanding the government keep its promise of ending fossil fuel subsidies. In France, police used violence at a protest against road construction in June and banned another in August. In Australia, activists opposing a huge coal terminal and a gas project were among those arrested in 2024.

In Uganda, campaigners against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline continue to face state repression. Last year, authorities arbitrarily arrested 11 activists from the campaign. These activists have faced intimidation and pressure to stop their activism.

Campaigners from Cambodia’s Mother Nature group paid a heavy price for their work in trying to stand up to powerful economic and political interests seeking to exploit the environment. Last July, 10 young activists were given long jail sentences after documenting river pollution.

Some states, like the UK, have rewritten protest laws to expand the range of offences, increase sentences and strengthen police powers. Last July, five Just Stop Oil activists were handed brutally long sentences of up to five years for planning a roadblock protest. The UK now arrests environmental protesters at three times the global average rate.

Italy’s right-wing government is introducing new restrictions. Last year, parliament passed a law on what it calls ‘eco-vandals’ in response to high-profile awareness-raising stunts at monuments and cultural sites. Another repressive law is being introduced that will allow sentences of up to two years for roadblock protests.

The struggle continues

Yet civil society will keep striving for action, which is more urgent than ever. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and it was crammed with extreme weather events, made more likely and frequent by climate change. Far too little is being done.

Fossil fuel companies continue their deadly trade. Global north governments, historically the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, are watering down plans as right-wing politicians gain sway. International commitments such as the Paris Agreement show ambition on paper, but not enough is achieved when states come together at summits such as last December’s COP29 climate conference.

There’s a huge funding gap between what’s needed to enable countries to transition to low-carbon economies and adapt to climate change. Global south countries want the most powerful economies, which have benefited from the industries that have caused the bulk of climate change, to pay their share. But of an estimated annual US$1.3 trillion needed, the most global north states agreed to at COP29 was US$3 billion a year.

Nor are fossil fuel companies paying their share. Over the past five decades the oil and gas sector has made profits averaging US$2.8 billion a day. Yet companies are currently scaling back renewable energy investments and planning still more extraction, while using their deep pockets to lobby against measures to rein them in. Making the global tax rules fairer and more effective would help too: US$492 billion a year could be recovered by closing offshore tax loopholes, while taxes on the excessive wealth of the super-rich could unlock US$2.1 trillion a year, more than enough to tackle the climate crisis.

Civil society will keep pushing, because every fraction of a degree in temperature rises matters to millions. Change is not only necessary, but possible. For example, following extensive civil society advocacy, last September the UK shut down its last coal-fired power station.

Civil society played a major role in campaigning for the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which requires large companies to align with the Paris Agreement. And last December, the International Court of Justice began hearing a case brought by a group of Pacific Island states, seeking an advisory opinion on what states are required to do to address climate change and help countries suffering its worst impacts. This landmark case originated with civil society, when student groups urged national leaders to take the issue to the court.

Trump’s return to the White House has made the road ahead much rockier. The world’s biggest historical emitter and largest current fossil fuel extractor has again given notice of its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, torn up renewable energy policies and made it easier to drill for fossil fuels. In response, other high-emitting nations must step up and show genuine climate leadership. They should start by committing to respecting the right of civil society to hold them to account. States and companies must cease their attacks on climate and environmental activists and instead partner with them to respond to the climate emergency.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact [email protected].

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By Gareth Evans and Jennifer Welsh
NEW YORK, Apr 15 2025 – April marks Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month, a time to reflect on the history, causes and victims of past genocides and to mobilize the necessary resolve to confront risks facing populations around the world today who face the threat of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes not for anything they have done, but for who they are.

As we solemnly observe this month of commemoration, we also reflect on the 20th anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s unanimous adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle – a concept which emerged in particular response to the international community’s failure to prevent the atrocity crimes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

By shifting the focus to every state’s ‘responsibility to protect’ rather than the big powers’ ‘right to intervene,’ by emphasizing prevention as well as reaction, and by committing to international collective action – including, when necessary, through the collective security provisions of the UN Charter – R2P made possible a global consensus completely lacking in previous decades.

The 2005 World Summit brought us closer than ever to translating the post-Holocaust dream of “never again” into a meaningful reality. It was a significant diplomatic achievement for all heads of state and government worldwide to acknowledge that genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing – even when committed within a sovereign state – are matters of international concern and thus demand timely and decisive response.

But 20 years later – with all too obvious horrors and civilian suffering still occurring in Gaza, Sudan, the DRC, Myanmar and elsewhere – it is clear that R2P is still at best a work in progress. It is time to reflect on what we have learned about preventing and responding to the atrocity crimes outlined in the World Summit Outcome Document, and to focus on how we can do better.

On the plus side, considerable progress has been made in our collective knowledge of the risk factors, causes and dynamics that drive mass atrocity crimes and in enhancing our responsiveness to warning signs, including through the development of the UN’s Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes. There is now a solid understanding of the wide range of preventive measures available, which includes not only a response to imminent and emerging risks, but also instituting policies, practices and structures that build long-term societal resilience to atrocity crimes.

Alongside these advances is a growing awareness that the different tools available for changing the behavior of would-be perpetrators, or for making victims less vulnerable, must be situated in a more coherent preventive strategy that is tailored to each context.

Moreover, the atrocity prevention agenda has been operationalized across the UN system. The creation of the Joint Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect has been central to strengthening the UN’s early warning capabilities, as well as for developing the conceptual and practical aspects of R2P.

Since the inception of the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect role, successive Special Advisers have been instrumental in identifying risk factors and clarifying best practices by states, regional organizations and the UN system in response to the threat of atrocity crimes.

In addition, the regular cycle of UN Secretary-General reports and General Assembly debates has reinforced the principle and fostered greater consensus and shared understanding within the UN system. The Group of Friends of R2P, with over 55 members from across all regions, is an important mobilizing force within the UN to advance effective atrocity crime prevention and response.

Over 60 countries from all regions of the world, along with the European Union and Organization of American States, have also appointed an R2P Focal Point, an important step for institutionalizing atrocity prevention at the national level. The appointment of a national R2P Focal Point is crucial for strengthening domestic capacity to fulfill the responsibility to protect, including by improving intra-governmental and inter-governmental efforts to prevent and halt atrocity crimes.

Furthermore, the international community has also made strides in its willingness and capacity to hold perpetrators responsible through international investigative bodies and mechanisms, international courts and tribunals, and in national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Transitional justice and memorialization also remain hallmarks of a broader commitment to deal with the past and promote truth, justice and non-recurrence.

Nonetheless, for all these significant institutional advances, we are all acutely aware that, 20 years on from the World Summit, the principle of R2P is under acute strain. There is a deeply troubling disconnect between the unanimous commitment to protecting populations from atrocity crimes and achieving consistent implementation and concrete preventive action.

All too often, effective national, regional and international action is inhibited by self-interested political arguments advanced in key institutions with a capacity to make a difference, including the UN Security Council. When principles and their practical application are contested it is time, more than ever, for UN member states to stand firm and do the hard work of continuing to find and build the consensus needed to protect populations at risk.

Moreover, there is a worrying decline in attention to atrocity crime prevention and the role of the Special Adviser on R2P within the UN Secretariat. This stands in stark contrast to the still very strong support from the great majority of UN member states and from civil society, human rights defenders, affected communities and victims’ and survivors’ groups around the world.

To consolidate the effectiveness of R2P, there is much more that needs to be done, and the work needs to start at home – not least at the UN Headquarters, but also on a national and regional level. At the core of R2P is a responsibility to invest in the institutional architecture to prevent the drivers of atrocity crimes from emerging or intensifying.

This anniversary year presents a crucial opportunity for the UN system, and particularly the UN Secretary-General and the Secretariat, to demonstrate ongoing commitment to fulfilling the responsibility to protect across all regions of the world.

The UN has proven time and again that it can mobilize resources and expertise to safeguard those at risk, with a notable track record of defending human rights and protecting vulnerable populations despite facing immense challenges. Rather than retreating from these efforts, it is critical that the UN and its member states redouble them, by honing and strengthening the capabilities needed to deliver effective prevention and response. Political and ideological differences must not be allowed to distract us from identifying signs of increased risk, wherever they may be, and taking early action to prevent atrocity crimes.

The strong commitments made in 2005 are as relevant today as they were 20 years ago. At a time of escalating conflicts, as well as threats to multilateralism and international justice, the UN Secretary-General and the UN must provide an alternative vision for the future in which a key element is the consistent implementation of R2P.

The future of R2P will only be secured if we – the UN system, intergovernmental and regional organizations, governments, civil society organizations and affected communities – fight for it and generate the political will to act. It would be a tragedy to give in to cynicism and skepticism, to overlook the continuing power of R2P as an inspiring ideal and to abandon the goal of seeing it fully and effectively implemented in all its dimensions.

This month of commemoration must serve as a reminder that indifference and inaction should never be an acceptable response whenever and wherever populations face the threat of genocide and other atrocity crimes.

Professor Gareth Evans is Co-Chair, International Advisory Board, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; Dr. Jennifer Welsh is Chair, International Advisory Board, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 15 2025 – US President Donald Trump has again seized global attention by arbitrarily imposing sweeping tariffs on the rest of the world. He reminds us America is still boss, claiming to ‘make America great again’ (MAGA) by ensuring ‘America first’ at everyone else’s expense.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Liberation Day?
His April 2 Liberation Day announcement triggered wild speculation over his proposal’s final form, implications, significance, and likely impacts, not only for the near future but also well beyond.

Since then, the world has been scrambling to understand better the president’s intentions to protect their interests. This has also triggered much talk about managing adjustment and enhancing resilience.

Shocked by his unilateral abandonment of the revised free trade agreement renegotiated during Trump 1.0, its North American neighbours were the first to engage publicly.

More recently, China’s ironically reciprocal response gave Trump another excuse for more punitively escalating his ‘reciprocal tariffs’. With little left to lose even before Trump’s latest tariffs against China, it said No to the Orange Emperor, switching the impact from manufacturing to agriculture.

Only major economies dare to retaliate. However, due to its geopolitics, including Trump’s demands for more ‘equitable’ NATO cost-sharing, an appropriately strong European response seems unlikely.

Many prioritise the Western alliance, while a few prefer other options. Sensing the ‘silence of the lambs’, the president has gloated over the steady stream of foreign leaders coming to ‘kiss my arse’.

Trump’s tariff fetish
The tariff announcement was not set in stone. It remains to be seen how much Trump’s support base, especially from the US corporate elite, will succeed in revising his measures.

He is unlikely to respond positively to opposition from abroad or even within the US. The tariffs will be tied up in legal and legislative procedures for some time, even after they go into effect.

The dissent of some Senate Republicans suggests the US Congress may reject the tariffs as a significant infringement on their Constitutional prerogatives.

Announced as executive orders, they are subject to judicial scrutiny. Of course, the White House will have to reconsider which battles to fight and which to concede without appearing to do so.

A face-saving compromise between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House is increasingly likely. Attention can thus be diverted abroad to preferred targets such as China and Iran.

Some other countries, especially the BRICS, may also be hit to ‘save face’. The president can then claim he tried his best to MAGA but was foiled by foreign-connected opponents.

While Trump critics are making much of his subsequent revisions, concessions, amendments and postponements, the greater significance of his announcement lies elsewhere.

Divided we fall
Trump 2.0 will dictate the terms of US engagement with the world. He has already reminded everyone he is The Great Disruptor. Dismissing cooperation as for losers, his team’s purpose is to put others down.

Trump has subverted the World Trade Organization and all US-negotiated trade agreements except when it best serves its interests. He has given notice of selectively invoking multilateralism and the rule of law to serve his preferred interests best.

Although all European countries will be affected by Trump’s tariffs, each will be hit differently. Hence, developing a strong, unified European position will be difficult. This will deter other regional and plurilateral groupings from collective action.

In one stroke, Trump reminded the world that America remains number one and that he means business. Critics overlook his purpose and strategy by dismissing his methods and tactics as transactional, stupid or irrational.

Method to the madness?
Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors chairman, Stephen Miran, has offered an economic rationale for Trumponomics 2.0. He argues the world must pay for the ‘global public goods’ the US ostensibly provides, especially US military spending.

He also insists the US is doing the world a favour by allowing the US dollar to serve as the world’s reserve currency. He ignores how it earns seigniorage and the ‘exorbitant privilege’ of being able to issue debt to the rest of the world without having to repay.

His so-called Mar-a-Lago Accord purports to offer more financial stability through US dollar currency pegs and related digital currency arrangements, requiring payment flows to the US Treasury and Federal Reserve.

Trump has promised even more regressive tax reforms for the super-rich who generously funded his re-election campaign. As before, this will be obscured by some tax relief for the ‘middle class’.

The shift from potentially progressive direct taxation to more indirect taxation has already begun, with the proposed tariffs impacting purchases of merchandise imports.

Industrial policy redux?
Tariffs cannot simply restart long-abandoned production overnight. Earlier manufacturing jobs were lost to imports and the automation of production processes.

Reviving abandoned productive capacities and capabilities will mainly create poor jobs. ‘Fortress USA will attract some investments, mainly for the limited US market, but it cannot transform itself into the world’s manufacturing powerhouse it once was.

Recent reshoring efforts have proved embarrassingly unsuccessful. This has been evident with the difficulties of the forced relocation of the world’s leading (Taiwanese) semiconductor manufacturer to the US.

Trump’s turn to industrial policy is more backward-looking than progressive. It seeks to save uncompetitive old capacities rather than advance potentially competitive new investments, technology, productive capacities, and capabilities.

Also, investment and technology promotion need supportive policies, especially in human resources, research, and development, which are increasingly undermined by Musk-led government spending cuts.

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By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
SAN FRANCICO, California / APEX, North Carolina , Apr 15 2025 – Is it only a decade since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change were agreed? The two deals were inked to a groundswell of hope.

The world had come together and reached consensus on how to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. A collaborative spirit was in the air.

Fast forward ten years and it feels like a century has passed and we’ve fallen over the abyss into
an alternate reality.

When he was elected for a second term, President Donald Trump promised extraordinary, history-making change. Whether you support his world view or not, no one can deny he has been true to his word. The previous multilateral consensus is shattered.

With tit-for-tat tariff escalation, cuts in overseas aid, a rise in regionalism and the return of transactional, ‘might makes right’ geopolitics, everything has changed. The old, postwar international order is fading.

Even before the dramatic changes of the past few months, the SDGs were on life support. A UN report issued in June 2024—five months before President Trump’s decisive election victory—found only 17% of the SDGs were on track.

About half showed minimal or modest progress, while one-third were actually going backwards. As we enter a new era set to be dominated by a handful of major powers and zero-sum game competition, is it time to declare the SDGs dead?

Is there a doctor in the building?

The SDGs may be ailing—their pulse faint and erratic—but in our opinion it’s not too late to save them. The goals still enjoy almost universal support among UN members. What’s more, most governments still believe in multilateralism.

They recognize that humanity’s progress throughout history has happened when people work together to create mutually beneficial win-win scenarios, not when a ‘winner-takes-all’ mentality prevails. And institutions like the United Nations haven’t gone away; their capacities and convening power remain.

Furthermore, the world is better placed today to take on many of the challenges targeted by the SDGs than it was ten years ago. For a start, new digital technologies and AI could improve access to real-time data and diagnostics, thus helping decision making. More broadly, breakthroughs in science and research—whether they relate to energy use or education, healthcare or agriculture—could prove transformative.

What’s more, the world is far wealthier than it was a decade ago. In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, global GDP jumped from around US$85 trillion in 2015 to more than $115 trillion today; an incredible change in such a short space of time.

This means we have a greater financial capacity to fund change. In light of these transformations, international collaboration and innovation could undoubtedly help put more of the SDGs within reach.

For those who believe in collaboration over competition, the upcoming UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) offers an opportunity to demonstrate their mindset and commitment. The HLPF, which is taking place at UN Headquarters in New York from July 14-23, will assess progress across five of the seventeen SDGs.

This time around, it will look at health and wellbeing (SDG 3), gender equality and empowerment (SDG 5), sustainable economic growth and employment (8), oceans and marine resources (14), and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development (17).

The theme in 2025 could not be more appropriate: advancing science and evidence-based solutions.

In recent years, there has been a backlash against experts and even a rejection of science in some quarters. The HLPF provides a timely opportunity for governments and other stakeholders to reaffirm their commitment to science and research-based decision making as the only logical, common-sense path to achieve the promise of the SDGs.

At the HLPF, 37 countries will be asked to present their national reports on the SDGs. From Bangladesh to Bulgaria, India to Indonesia, South Africa to Saint Lucia, more than three dozen countries, large and small, will have the chance to make their views clear to the world.

One of the countries that will be presenting is Germany, which will hold the Presidency of the General Assembly from September 2025 to September 2026. At such a critical time, it is reassuring that we will have leadership from a country that has been such a staunch supporter of multilateralism.

With five years to go to the SDGs’ 2030 deadline, we believe it’s time to double down on the promise of the SDGs and commit to a pathway focused on science, technology, innovation and collaboration.

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in UN environmental negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022). Their next book, Environmental Lobbying at the United Nations: A Guide to Protecting Our Planet, is scheduled for release in June 2025.

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By Catherine Wilson
LONDON, Apr 15 2025 – It is now official that the European continent is experiencing the fastest rate of global warming, according to a new scientific report released by Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Last year record temperatures, heatwaves, and floods unleashed a massive toll on infrastructure, cities, economies, and people’s lives and livelihoods in the region.

“Our findings tell us that Europe is the fastest-warming continent,” Florence Rabier, Director-General of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which includes Copernicus, declared at the media briefing. “Heat stress continues to increase across Europe. The heat will have an impact on us, on our health… and it highlights the importance of increasing adaptation across the continent.”

The European State of the Climate Report for 2024 is the eighth report so far by WMO and Copernicus, the earth observation division of the European Union’s Space Programme. And it represents work by 100 scientists from Europe and around the world.

In Europe, “2024 was the warmest year on record, and the last decade has been the warmest decade on record,” Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the WMO, added. “Every additional fraction of a degree of temperature rise matters because it accentuates the risks to our lives, to economies, and to the planet… action is needed now, today, not tomorrow.”

In July last year, central, southern, and eastern Europe were scorched by protracted heatwaves with multiple days of 35-40 degrees Celsius in countries including Italy, Albania, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania. The heatwave was the longest one on record, extending over 13 days and affecting 55 percent of the population. Temperatures peaked above 38 degrees Celsius on more than seven days and, overall, more than 60 percent of Europeans lived through more days than average of ‘strong heat stress,’ the new report claims.

“Last year 45 percent of days were warmer than average in Europe. The duration of heat has increased,” Dr. Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of Copernicus, told media. And “it is the first year of the temperature increase reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, although we have not yet breached the Paris Agreement,” she continued. Rising incidence of extreme heat will also threaten greater losses of crops, freshwater, and the deterioration of terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Europe, according to the IPCC.

The heat peaks were matched by the depth of the floods that saw the swelling of one-third of Europe’s rivers to the ‘high’ threshold mark and the most prevalent flooding since 2013. “The most recent three decades had the highest number of floods in the past 500 years,” Francesca Guglielmo, Senior Scientist at Copernicus, told IPS.

The annual average number of days with at least ‘strong’, ‘very strong’ and ‘extreme heat stress’ for Europe from 1950 to 2024. Photo credit: C3S/ECMWF

In September, Storm Boris released torrential rainfall and destructive flooding in countries, including Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Romania. In the counties of Galati and Vaslui in eastern Romania, adjacent to the border with Moldova, communities were hit by 150 millimeters of rainfall per square meter in less than 24 hours. Seven people died and 400 were left homeless, with more than 6,000 homes and 300 kilometers of roads swept away or damaged.

Two months later, a year’s worth of rain descended on the city of Valencia in eastern Spain in eight hours and led to catastrophic flash floods. The impact was that of a tsunami, as buildings and vehicles were mangled in the deluge and more than 200 people lost their lives. Economic losses were estimated at 18 billion euros.

Extreme flooding prevailed across Europe last year, with 30 percent of the river network exceeding the ‘high’ flood threshold. Photo credit: C3S/ECMWF

Guglielmo told IPS that the excessive floods were only partly related to an observed trend in rainfall in recent years. “In recent decades there has been an increase in average precipitation over northern, western, central, and eastern Europe. In northern and eastern Europe, precipitation extremes have also increased, but the observed trend varies across western and central Europe,” she said. Europe will face a major projected increase in flood risk this century, according to the IPCC.

Located south of the Arctic, Europe’s glaciers offer insight into the planet’s warming as well. Ice cover and glaciers account for about 70 percent of the world’s freshwater and their melting has serious consequences for rising sea levels and greater instability in the planet’s climate system.  The new report highlights that last year there was a major loss of ice in Scandinavia and Svalbard in Norway by 1.8 meters and 2.7 meters in ice thickness, respectively.

“Europe is one of the places where glaciers are melting the fastest,” Burgess said, and “Svalbard is one of the fastest warming places in the world.”

Alongside the human impact, Europe faces increasing climate-related economic losses. From 1980 to 2020, the European Economic Area (EEA) experienced climate and disaster losses ranging from 450 to 520 billion euros.

Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, 2024. Credit: World Meteorological Organization

And the WMO warns that there is no alternative but to accelerate adaptation. “Extreme weather events present increasing risks to Europe’s built environment and infrastructure, which could increase ten-fold by the end of the century,” Dr Andrew Ferrone of the WMO told media. “The risk and level of climate adaptation varies across Europe, but all countries are taking some form of action… 51 percent of countries have dedicated plans and this progress is significant.”

In 2021 the EU launched the European Green Deal, a strategy aimed at myriad goals, including improving the quality of air and water on the continent, reducing energy consumption, protecting public health, and achieving climate neutrality by 2050. One positive milestone is that the proportion of electricity generated by renewables in Europe recently reached a record 45 percent. But WMO and Copernicus emphasize that much more urgent action is needed to address flood risks, especially in towns and cities, and expand the development of Early Warning Systems.

Without a sense of urgency, the predictions are grim. ‘Hundreds of thousands of people would die from heatwaves and economic losses from coastal floods alone could exceed 1 trillion euros per year,’ the EEA reported last year. And in March this year, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told the ‘Europe 2025’ conference in Berlin that ‘the climate crisis could carve up to 2.3 percent off Europe’s GDP by mid-century, a recipe for permanent recession, meaning continuously shrinking economies, failing businesses and significantly increased unemployment.’

One of the report’s key messages is that, while there will be challenges in Europe to generate the resources and financial investment needed and to motivate a whole-of-society response to climate change, it will, in the longer term, be a smaller price to pay than maintaining the status quo.

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