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- Green Deal Projects Support Office
Climate change poses a threat to our way of life, through risks such as increased frequency of extreme weather events, food security challenges, ecosystem degradation, eroding coastlines, and public health crises. Exposure to these risks can leave us vulnerable to their harmful impacts, which overall have negative consequences on human wellbeing and the economy. For example, the average annual economic losses in Europe from storms, floods, and extreme temperatures have increased by 53% from 2009 to 2023[1] .
While climate mitigation – reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – is crucial, climate change is already happening, and its effects will continue and amplify. It is therefore essential that we take urgent action to adjust to present and future impacts through climate adaptation.
Climate adaptation is the act of preparing for and adjusting to the current and future impacts of climate change. One way that the EU has demonstrated its commitment to climate adaptation is by investing into projects that strengthen Europe’s capacity to adapt to climate change. Notably, the Horizon 2020 Green Deal Call has directed millions of euros into projects that build climate resilience in a variety of ways. Given the wide range of climate change impacts, an equally diverse response is essential, and this is reflected in the topic areas funded through the Green Deal Call. These include nature-based solutions, citizen science and community action, data tools and climate services, private financing of adaptation measures, and urban adaptation. Projects span multiple scales, from local cities and municipalities, to regional, national, and European levels.
Read our previous GD-SO article on four climate adaptation projects funded under the Green Deal Call and another on the role of nature-based solutions for a resilient Europe!
The need for diverse climate adaptation approaches is also emphasised and embodied by the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference, the latest of which took place in June 2025 (ECCA2025). ECCA is a biennial conference funded by the EU that brings together experts on climate adaptation, such as practitioners, government representatives, researchers, and other stakeholders. It is the largest climate adaptation conference in Europe, and it serves as a platform for knowledge sharing and network building, to foster connections that will help to accelerate and amplify Europe’s adaptation efforts. ECCA2025 took place in Rimini, Italy and focused on the principle of “Smarter, Faster and More Systemic Adaptation”. Adaptation experts were invited to host sessions under the following five key climate adaptation themes:
Living with climate extremes addresses escalating weather extremes, highlighting local solutions, equity, and adaptation in different settings.
Managing cities to be fit for the future focuses on the complex risks, data gaps, and governance challenges associated with advancing and scaling urban climate adaptation.
Protecting coastal and mountain areas responds to the distinct and severe climate risks faced by coastal and mountainous regions.
Human and legal dimensions of change explore the human, political, and legal dimensions of climate adaptation, emphasising fairness, environmental justice, and inclusive governance.
Adaptation finance: reducing communities’ economic or social vulnerabilities involves innovative solutions to close the adaptation finance gap in Europe.
ECCA2025 was attended by several Green Deal Call-funded projects in the Climate Change and Biodiversity working group, who featured in sessions to shine a spotlight on their work. This article will explore diverse climate adaptation efforts under the Green Deal Call, in the context of the ECCA2025 themes.
Living with climate extremes and managing cities to be fit for the future
Climate services are tools that provide climate data, information, and knowledge to users, for their interpretation and use in decision-making for climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. They can be designed for a wide range stakeholders, such as citizens, businesses, and policymakers, for use at all scales from the individual to national. LOCALISED, RethinkAction, I-CISK and REACHOUT, are four Green Deal Call-funded projects that focus on developing climate services and tools for mitigation and adaptation. At ECCA2025, they joined together to host a session on their key outputs and results. There were over 100 participants in attendance and the Q&A session that followed their presentation led to fruitful discussion and feedback. Their attendance at ECCA2025 was complemented with the publication of a joint policy brief on climate services.
Read the new joint policy brief: Crossing the last mile in climate services: Putting policies into action.
LOCALISED focuses on developing science-based tools to support climate mitigation and adaptation actions that can be used at different local scales, and help to include the involvement of citizens. This includes two tools specifically for businesses – the Net-Zero Business Consultant and a business model canvas –, a data sharing platform, and a tool to guide citizen engagement. In the joint ECCA2025 session, LOCALISED showcased its tool designed for use by regional and municipality-level policymakers, the Climate Action Strategiser. This groundbreaking web-based tool is the product of three years of development and it supports local climate action planning through optimised adaptation and mitigation measures based on their affordability, carbon emission reductions, risk reduction, and social equity. Adaptation measures include installing air conditioning or creating climate shelter spaces. Some measures promote both climate adaptation and mitigation at the same time. Users can adjust the input data to tailor it to their area, and they can also export communication materials to support discussions and decision making with other stakeholders. The tool is free-to-use and aims to motivate local administrations to adopt cross-sectoral measures that improve climate resilience.
Watch how LOCALISED's Climate Action Strategiser is supporting community resilience in Germany!
RethinkAction is supporting land-use related decision-making to further climate mitigation and adaptation efforts, by developing a digital platform that empowers users to take informed and intentional climate action at both the political and individual level. Humans depend on the land and the ecosystem services (benefits that we receive from nature) that it provides, such as agriculture, water supply, and tourism. However, the ways in which humans use the land can exacerbate the harmful impacts of climate change, for example, overexploitation of freshwater reserves can reinforce desertification and drought. At the same time, land-use strategies can play an essential role in adapting to climate change. Therefore, it is essential that people understand the impact of climate change on the land (both locally and globally), and how their actions (on the individual scale to the collective) can shape climate adaptation. RethinkAction has marked an incredible milestone by successfully publishing its digital tool, the Integrated Assessment Platform. Its launch coincided with ECCA2025 and the project presented the tool to the audience. It is the culmination of nearly four years of dedicated work made by experts that integrate social sciences, political science, land-use based policy, environmental and atmospheric science, computing and integrated assessment modelling, earth observation, climatology and communication. The platform focuses on providing citizens, stakeholders, and policymakers with information, data, and recommendations on land-used based climate mitigation and adaptation solutions. It then empowers them to evaluate different land-use decisions and take action based on contribution to climate goals. RethinkAction has hosted a series of webinars across July to promote the platform to Early Replicators, and released a Massive Open Online Course in September 2025.
I-CISK aims to generate climate services tailored to the needs of end users. It recognises that users consult and integrate multiple sources of knowledge when making short- and long-term adaptation and disaster risk reduction decisions, including their own local knowledge. Over four years, the project has taken into consideration social and behavioural norms, as well as local needs, knowledge, and customs in the development of user-informed climate services. At ECCA2025, I-CISK shared experiences using its framework for co-creating human-centred climate services, a practical guide to co-create climate services in a living lab environment, based on continuous engagement with stakeholders. The framework helps integrates climate information needs and desires with adaptation goals and climate data and knowledge.
Figure 1: The I-CISK co-creation framework
I-CISK also presented how this framework has been brought to life at the project’s own seven living labs in Europe and Africa. Climate services have been developed in partnership with stakeholders, to empower users to harness the full potential of climate information and make informed decisions about adaptation to climate change. The process helped develop 15 novel pre-operational climate services, including thermal maps to identify heat hotspots, drought forecast and awareness tools, hydrological and hydrogeological modelling, and climate predictions and projections.
REACHOUT is improving user-focused climate adaptation services for cities and the urban environment. It has developed the Triple-A framework, an adaptation approach that stands for “Analysis, Ambition, Action”, the key elements of adaptation actions.
Analysis means assessing current and future climate risks
Ambition means prioritising, planning, and goal setting
Action means enacting the necessary measures to achieve the climate adaptation goals.
At ECCA2025, REACHOUT showcased its Triple-A Toolkit to the audience. This toolkit acts as a repository for climate adaptation tools, guidance, and other resources that embody the Triple-A approach, for cities to enact and accelerate adaptation actions. The toolkit supports policymakers, urban planners, researchers, and communities in assessing climate risks, identifying vulnerabilities, and developing effective adaptation strategies. It addresses key adaptation issues such as flooding, heat stress, and socio-economic impacts. REACHOUT has also brought its Triple-A toolkit to seven cities across Europe to demonstrate how the tools can be used to create real change in urban communities, with concrete benefits. Overall, REACHOUT emphasised that using climate services at the local level is crucial for cities adapt to a changing climate. It has developed an approach and made available the Triple-A toolkit, and the next step is fostering a supportive policy environment to maximise their impact. Sharing its work at ECCA2025 provided a valuable platform to advance this conversation further.
After the presentations, the four projects welcomed questions and answers from the audience. The discussion was very active, and participants were engaged in the topic. Q&A sessions are a two-way exchange of information and provide deeper insight into the work of the projects while providing valuable feedback for the projects to reflect upon. To this end, the ECCA2025 conference provided opportunities for connection and interdisciplinary learning, furthering the work of the projects and the goals of the European Green Deal Call.
Protecting coastal and mountain areas
REST-COAST featured as a speaker in a session that explored how healthy coastal ecosystems provide essential ecosystem services, including climate adaptation and mitigation benefits. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are a key tool for building climate resilience through ecosystem service provision and are defined as “solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience[2].”
At ECCA2025, REST-COAST discussed the value of upscaling NbS in coastal areas to enhance climate adaptation. The project showcased its pilot site at the Venice Lagoon, a dynamic ecosystem that has been heavily shaped by centuries of human activity and is home to the city of Venice. The lagoon contains salt marsh habitat that is rich in biodiversity and provides ecosystem services, however, has been eroded over the past 100 years due to human pressures such as boating and climate change. REST-COAST has been implementing ecosystem restoration as an NbS by rebuilding eroded sections, protecting the eroding marsh 
edges from further erosion, and constructing new areas of marsh. Upscaling these activities to other parts of the lagoon would improve the climate resilience of the lagoon at large, and the city of Venice. To support this upscaling, the project has stablished a Coastal Restoration Platform, regularly organising stakeholder workshops to better understand the local desires for the future of the lagoon. At the Platform meetings, REST-COAST presents modelling impact results and restoration activities to discuss and pinpoint what needs to be done to co-design the desired future for the lagoon. Alongside monitoring of the current restoration activities for their performance using indicators, results from the modelling has served to help define adaptation pathways to a restored Venice Lagoon that is resilient against flooding and coastal erosion.
Figure 2: Oyster catcher at the Venice Lagoon © REST-COAST
Adaptation finance: reducing communities’ economic or social vulnerabilities - Managing cities to be fit for the future
TransformAr is developing rapid and far-reaching pathways for climate adaptation in Europe. However, to action climate adaptation, funding is needed. Although some funding is available from public bodies such as the EU, governments and NGOs, it is not sufficient to support the extent of adaptation needed for a sufficiently resilient Europe. Private finance is required to bridge this adaptation finance gap, but adaptation projects struggle to attract investors as compared to traditional investments, due to higher risks, longer time horizons, and uncertain returns.
At ECCA2025, TransformAr explored adaptation finance investment opportunities at its West Country demonstration site in the United Kingdom. Soils in the West Country contain excessive levels of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphate, which degrade the condition of nearby rivers, reduce water quality, disrupt biodiversity, and weaken resilience to floods and drought. To prevent further harm to nearby rivers, new housing developments are restricted unless developers can demonstrate that their project will not increase nutrient pollution, which has significant implications for the local economy. However, this challenge also presents an opportunity for private investment in pollution reduction measures, which can improve river health and enhance long-term resilience. TransformAr trialled a Nutrient Credit Trading scheme, in which developers pay landowners to implement actions that reduce nutrient pollution. Developers benefit by meeting the requirements needed for planning approval, while landowners receive financial compensation for reducing pollution and contributing to climate adaptation. The trial has laid the foundations for a more robust scheme in the coming years and has reduced flood risk for houses downstream. TransformAr has also fostered a network of businesses in the local area that are interested in other climate adaptation investments going forward.
For a deeper dive into solutions to the climate adaptation finance gap, watch TransformAr's webinar featuring fellow Green Deal Call projects, REST-COAST and WaterLANDS
Conclusion
Europe is feeling the effects of climate change, and climate adaptation and mitigation must be integrated into decision-making to reduce harm and prepare for future risks. ECCA2025 brought adaptation experts from across Europe together to share solutions, celebrate successes, and build connections that amplify their impact. Projects funded under the Green Deal Call participated in ECCA2025 to show how they are strengthening Europe’s climate resilience in the face of issues such as temperature extremes, storms, flooding, and other socio-economic pressures. Their diverse approaches reflect not only the breadth of adaptation and mitigation challenges, but also the fact that a single issue often requires multiple, complementary solutions. This highlights the need for cross-sector collaboration and the value of events such as ECCA2025. The projects illustrate how EU investment into research and innovation has driven real-world impact, with their tools and methodologies available to support ongoing efforts to address climate change.
Join the upcoming webinar:
Crossing the Last Mile in Climate Services: Putting Policies into Action on 9 December 2025
[1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/economic-losses-from-climate-related
[2] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/research-area/environment/nature-based-solutions_en
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