REGIONs4CLIMATE / ABOUT

About

How does climate change affect us every day?

The effects of climate change are becoming more visible in our daily lives. As global warming continues to worsen, we need to reorganise our habits and lifestyles.
The IPCC identifies the loss of food production and water scarcity as the main resources impacted by climate change, impacting our economy, health and society.

Water scarcity

Due to climate change, many regions are faced with severe episodes of water scarcity. On average, this amounts to one month per year.
Some regions, such as Cyprus and the Nordic Archipelago, suffer even more during the tourist season because of the massive change in population between low and high periods. This water scarcity has an impact on local agriculture and tourism activities, causing the population to leave because of the lack of work and resources available, such as in Castilla y Léon and Sitia.

Water-related hazards

Droughts, floods, and coastal erosion are the main hazards faced in the demo regions of the project. This forces communities in the South Aquitaine, Azores, Tuscany, Burgas, Pärnumaa and Helsinki-Uusimaa regions to leave their homes.

The overarching ambition of Regions4Climate is to advance European transitions to climate resilience. The project will provide a suite of user-centred tools and frameworks to support socially-just regional climate resilience transitions, while linking new knowledge and detailed understanding of regional ecosystems with innovative technologies and processes.

Learnings from regional demonstrations of co-created cross-sectoral solutions within 12 European regions provide input for long-term politically adopted and secured resilience strategies.

Drought in the Azores.
Source: DRAAC (Direção Regional do Ambiente e Alterações Climáticas)

From climate change to resilience

Climate resilience as a sustainable solution

Climate resilience is the ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the impacts of climate phenomena while causing minimal damage to social welfare, the economy, and the environment. Regions that are especially vulnerable to climate change, such as coastal areas, small islands, and deserted areas, are more likely to experience vulnerability and injustices that can undermine efforts to achieve sustainable development, particularly for marginalised communities.

By involving all stakeholders within the society, from governments to citizens, vulnerable regions will be able to tackle climate-related issues on a multi-level basis, creating a more equal and thriving society for all.

For a Just Transition

The just transition framework is intended to provide context for the integration of human needs while unlocking talent within regional planning and development strategies.

Implementing these strategies induces co-creation processes that support equitable and accessible urban development wherein all citizens are equally able to contribute.

The project will identify social inequalities and the most vulnerable groups within its demo regions, and map how different adaptation measures might disproportionately affect vulnerable groups in order to prevent such adverse impacts.

January 2023

Launch of the project in Helsinki. 44 partners meet for the first time and start to put together the first steps.

June 2023

Roadmap of each region released.

September 2023

Launch of the Regions4Climate website with dedicated webpages for each region, illustrating their challenges and solutions towards climate resilience.

Expected outcomes

Create a climate-resilient society

Robust assessment frameworks paired with structured stakeholder engagement and policy evaluations will highlight the existing local adaptation capacity and its inherent vulnerabilities. These insights and data will contribute to the creation of full-scale technological and social innovation solutions, in line with the Paris Agreement and the European Climate Law.

Develop socio-technological climate resilience solutions

Through collaboration and twinning between frontrunners and less experienced regions, innovative socio-technological solutions will be scaled up and largely deployed. Active engagement between stakeholders and communities via workshops and events will facilitate a greater understanding of risks and pressures among regional stakeholders and result in at least one new initiative in each demo region.

Achieve a just societal transformation

Engagement of multi-sectoral stakeholders will foster a common understanding of the impacts of decisions and increase awareness, positive perception, and knowledge of various climate adaptation strategies. The mechanisms and frameworks for a just social transition, regional transformations and advancement of governance structures will increase trust in local processes and the overall adaptation approaches. Evidence-based restoration methods will improve measures to protect and restore natural areas for climate adaptation and mitigation.

Contact us

Project Coordinator

Carmen Antuña Rozado
VTT
carmen.antuna@vtt.fi

Communication

Rosa Vallespinós
REVOLVE
rosa@revolve.media

For media requests, please contact:
press@revolve.media

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor CINEA can be held responsible for them.