
Climate change impacts and adaptation in Europe. JRC PESETA IV final report
The PESETA IV study aims to better understand the effects of climate change on Europe, for a number of climate change impact sectors, and how these effects could be avoided with mitigation and adaptation policies.
The JRC PESETA IV study shows that ecosystems, people and economies in the EU will face major impacts from climate change if we do not urgently mitigate greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to climate change.
The burden of climate change shows a clear north-south divide, with southern regions in Europe much more impacted, through the effects of extreme heat, water scarcity, drought, forest fires and agriculture losses.
Climate change damages the capital stock and affects economic production and the welfare of households. Quantification of these economic effects for river floods, coastal floods, agriculture, energy supply, droughts, windstorms and human mortality, shows that the economic impacts are dominated by human mortality from temperature.
However, its contribution strongly depends on the monetary valuation of human life. The magnitude of welfare losses in southern regions of Europe is several times larger than for northern regions. Compared to 3°C warming, 2°C warming would halve the economic impacts, while limiting to 1.5°C would reduce them by 75%.