Cascading climate risks: Strategic recommendations for european resilience

Cascades Research Report (November) 2023

Direct climate change impacts such as increasing heatwaves, floods and wildfires pose a serious risk to European societies. Impacts beyond Europe’s borders, in countries with less capacity to prepare, respond and adapt, will be even greater.

‘Cascading climate risks’ connect European and wider vulnerability, as climate hazards in remote locations create knock-on impacts that spread across borders and through systems, affecting European societies and economies. Europe’s exposure to cascading climate risks increases if countries, communities and companies outside the European Union (EU) do not have the capacity to prevent initial climate impacts from escalating and propagating.

Cascading climate risks are, as yet, little understood and seldom assessed or managed. This is extremely dangerous. Such risks will only grow in coming years. This report therefore recommends how European stakeholders, particularly the EU, should respond across policy domains, scales and systems.

To meet the cascading climate risk challenge, a stepwise approach to implementing the recommendations is needed. This summary suggests how this might proceed, to enable European institutions and policymakers to hardwire consideration of cascading climate risks into policies and processes. It moves from the level of individual understanding, through institutional change, to systemic.