European Union (EU) countries must increase investment in climate change adaptation or face much higher economic and social costs in the future, said European Commissioner for Climate Action, Climate Neutrality, and Clean Growth Wopke Hoekstra in a commentary to Politico.

He said climate change adaptation spending had become a necessity and governments must begin investing heavily in measures to build resilience to its impacts.

Hoekstra noted that budgets reflect political priorities.

“The bushfires and floods show that if we don’t make this a priority, we will pay a much higher price in terms of health, the economy and society,” he said.

The European Commissioner also stressed the importance of immediate action to combat the effects of climate change.

“This will impact on European and national budgets, but the reality is that if you don’t do it, you’ll pay even more,” Hoekstra said.

He added that governments that choose to forgo necessary investments should not be surprised if economic damage continues to mount.

The European Commission estimates that the EU needs to invest around €70 billion annually to protect against floods, cool cities, and implement other climate change adaptation measures.

Currently, EU member states spend approximately €29 billion per year on these measures.

The damage that climate change is causing to infrastructure already exceeds this amount.

Google machine translated