Debate: Natural disasters during the summer  - Impacts of natural disasters in Europe due to climate change
Date: TUESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2021
Speaker: Elisa Ferreira
Language: EN

Climate change brings more extreme weather events, heatwaves, floods and forest fires. It seems that every year breaks a new record. The events are bigger, they come more often and they have greater and more disastrous impacts on the people of Europe.  First, let me just express our thoughts to the people that were recently hit by these events and in particular for those that lost their loved ones and lost their livelihoods. It’s floods, it’s forest fires, it’s a complete list of terrible disasters.  But of course, our sympathy is not enough. There must be a European response. And as Europeans, one of our key values is active and practical solidarity. In a crisis we stand together. Let me outline very briefly how Europe helped in the first hours and days of the disasters.  Belgium, for instance, requested help through the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism and within a few hours, seven Member States had offered their assistance. In particular, France, Italy and Austria deployed more than 150 rescue workers, more than 30 rescue boats and two helicopters through the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism. For forest fires, Greece, Italy and Cyprus also requested support via the Civil Protection Mechanism, and Greece alone received help from 11 other Member States. Nine aerial first fighting assets, 250 vehicles and 1100 firefighters as first responders. In both floods and fires the first responders received vital intelligence from, and here in part the reason I said to your question, Copernicus Emergency Management Service. It is an instrument that produces satellite maps in real time to support the damage assessment and to guide the emergency response. Mapping, for instance, 460 000 hectares burned by fires.  This was what we can call the immediate response. So where are we now? We in the Commission stand ready to mobilise the European Union Solidarity Fund. Cyprus has already submitted an application and we are aware that other Member States plan to do the same.  However, over the last two years, the number and scale of disasters means there have been many calls on this solidarity fund, including for earthquakes and for COVID. This has put a severe strain on resources. We in the Commission, Parliament and Council must consider all possible options within our instruments to allow the solidarity fund to continue to deliver European support to those affected by natural disasters.  It is also clear that we must invest in long-term prevention and already in the 2014 cohesion programmes, 17 Member States invested in flood prevention. Nine invested in coastal protection. Six in preventing forest fires. And there were various other instruments and investments to tackle earthquakes, landslides and drought.  We must do even more in the programmes currently under preparation to keep people safe. Climate change induced risks must be taken very, very seriously. You cannot reply afterwards, so ex-post is not the solution and adaptation becomes not an option. Adaptation and prevention are a necessity.  This means preventive infrastructures such as dikes, flood walls, stormwater collectors and water basins. This means greener land management, managing flood plains and fire risk more naturally, for example, by reducing soil sealing and the concretisation of flood plains.  It also means investing in crisis management, including of course, rescue vehicles, fire engines, helicopters. It also means more territorial cohesion, as most of the time, the negative impact of these disasters is exacerbated by social and spatial inequalities.  I count on your support to ensure that cohesion programmes in your country, as well as other European Union programmes, including, and I underline, the Recovery and Resilience Facility, include appropriate measures for mitigating the risk of natural disasters.  These are my three points: first, the immediate response under the Civil Protection Mechanism; second, the need for adequate resources for the EU solidarity fund and; third, the need to put preparation and mitigation and adaptation measures into the European Union programmes, including the new cohesion programmes and the Recovery and Resilience Facility.  So now I look forward to our discussion. Thank you once again.