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Infrastructure Messages:
Despite high levels of government investment, the World Bank predicts that the global economy would decrease by 5.2 percent in 2020. Cities account for 80% of global GDP, thus they will face the brunt of this decline.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 80% of individuals living in cities are exposed to dangerous air pollution, which has been associated to an increased risk of COVID-19 problems and mortality.

'''Cities of all sizes may be critical economic engines for speeding up national economic recovery by tackling the climate challenge in an inclusive manner. National governments must create new investment frontiers and strive for urban green recovery. '''

'''Cities in Europe, for example, have implemented efforts to extend public areas for more outdoor activities, resulting in reduced traffic and air pollution. Cities are establishing designated bike lanes to promote fitness and safe transportation. '''

Lima, Peru's capital, has a population of about 10 million people. This equates to one-third of the overall population of the nation. Lima, like the rest of Peru, was subjected to a lengthy period of confinement or quarantine that lasted more than four months. However, in May, the process of restoring activities began as part of the national government's economic reactivation strategy.

Lima's green recovery is centred on bringing services closer to the most vulnerable people, with the goal of creating a green, wealthy, and equitable city for all. The municipality has an aim of implementing sustainable infrastructure to limit the development of COVID-19 through the execution of 46 km of rising bike routes.

Lima is one of over 10,000 cities from all around the world that make up the Global Covenant of Mayors. The Bank's Project Advisory Support Unit produced an eight-month research in 2019 that Oradea is currently putting into action – with good implications for the city's economy and climate action.

With the European Investment Bank's proposed new energy sources and efficiency improvements, Oradea's district heating system will reduce carbon emissions by 44 percent by 2050. In addition, the city will be allowed to discontinue payments to the private operator of the heating system after ten years.

Oradea is using geothermal electricity from water two kilometers below ground, which provides 7% of the energy for its district heating system. The district heating system serves 70% of the city's 200 000 population by providing heat and hot water.

'''As part of its €70 million, seven-year consulting program, The Project Advisory Support unit in the European Investment Bank will take on comparable initiatives for four more Romanian cities in 2020. '''

KCM has long processed metals, especially zinc and lead, in the mineral mining region surrounding Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second-largest city. The company's production process is being improved to improve resource efficiency, preserve the health of its 1 500 employees, and meet with future, stricter environmental laws in the metallurgical sector.

KCM received a €65 million loan from the European Investment Bank in 2019 to assist update its operations and boost its usage of “secondary materials,” which include zinc and lead derived from recycled materials such as batteries, furnace dust, and oxides. The new facilities at KCM will result in more automated and ecologically friendly zinc and lead production, as well as increased recycling capacity.

Just Transition is a program implemented by the European Commission. The European Investment Bank project agreed in 2019 to fund rehabilitation and energy efficiency measures for 9,600 social housing units in the former mining area of Nord-Pas-de-Calais in northern France. The €153 million loan contributes to climate action by reducing the energy consumption of 22,457 recipients. It also results in yearly energy cost savings of €1200 per home. In terms of privacy, legislation has been adopted, most notably the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, by Europe, which is the worldwide gold standard in this regard. Many people are concerned about the fact that the measures that must be implemented to combat and control the virus involve increasing amounts of surveillance and intrusion into people's private lives and movements, particularly through tracking applications that are being developed to be installed on people's smart phones.

Singapore was an early adopter of an app that tracked people's contacts if they were determined to be positive. Although adoption is minimal, it has been warmly received by society in Singapore. It is believed that 60 percent adoption is required for it to be successful, but actual take-up is far lower than that.

The goal of GDPR and comparable legislation—such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, which was adopted last year and is becoming more accepted in other areas of the US—is to protect consumers' privacy. It is about ensuring that people, customers, and citizens have control over what data private firms retain, how it is used, and for what purpose, as well as the ability to have it withdrawn.

The European Commission issued a new multi-year data plan in February pushing the digitalization of all aspects of EU society for the benefit of civic and economic growth.

The goal of this data strategy is to create a single market for data in which data flows across the EU and across sectors while maintaining full respect for privacy and data protection, where access rules are fair, and where the European economy benefits enormously as a global player as a result of this new data economy.

Given the concerns about data exploitation, the EU also developed an artificial intelligence policy, with a working group studying ways to assure confidence in the use of artificial intelligence. These were issued in two white papers that seemed to have gone unnoticed in the midst of the crisis's attention. A European Approach to Excellence and Trust is one on AI.

A public-private partnership (PPP) is a long-term agreement, often lasting 10 to 30 years, in which a private-sector partner assumes responsibility for developing, financing, and maintaining a piece of public infrastructure. PPPs can be found in schools, hospitals, highways, trains, airports, and waste-treatment plants.

'''A high-speed connection at home has enabled effective teleworking, the continuation of entertainment habits, and the maintenance of intimate touch with our loved ones via videoconferencing. During the confinement time, data traffic on all networks surged dramatically. '''

The early telecommunication networks were created with copper wires as the physical medium for signal transmission. For many years, these networks were utilized for basic phone services, namely voice and telegrams. Since the mid-1990s, as the internet has grown in popularity, voice has been gradually supplanted by data. This soon demonstrated the limitations of copper in data transmission, prompting the development of optics.

Glass fiber transports photons while copper sends electrons. In other words, the fiber cable transmits light, which travels faster than electrons and so allows for quicker speeds. Furthermore, when sent over an optical connection, optical signals degrade less over distance than electrical signals transmitted over copper cables.

The primary optical transmitter, known as the Optical Line Terminal (OLT), is housed within the central office of the telecommunications operator. A laser in the OLT injects photons from the central office into a glass-and-plastic fiber-optic cable that terminates at a passive optical splitter. The splitter divides the single signal from the central office into many signals that can be sent to up to 64 consumers. The number of consumers serviced by a single laser is determined by the operator's engineering criteria, which may opt to reduce the number to 32 consumers. Furthermore, the operator may choose to divide the signal twice, for example, once into eight and again farther down the line. The maximum distance between the central office and the site can be 20 kilometers, however operators will normally limit it to 16 kilometers in order to maintain a high level of service.

In contrast to ADSL technology, which deteriorates as the distance between the central office and the household rises, with severe signal loss beyond 3km, all houses may enjoy high-speed internet within the 16km range of a fibre central office.

According to recent research, fiber cuts this energy to 0.5 Watt per user. Multiplying this by millions of European consumers demonstrates the potential CO2 reductions we may gain by moving to fiber. The European Investment Bank is collaborating with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on a project funded by the European Commission's External Investment Plan that aims to improve diagnostic and laboratory services in poor countries through public-private partnerships.

The European Investment Bank is signing a memorandum of understanding with the WHO that targets a variety of issues in the developing world, but it also looks at how we can effectively respond to the present situation.

According to the World Health Organization, affluent or high-income nations have 45 times the number of medical researchers as impoverished countries. So, if there is any progress and hope in combating Covid19, it is all on our shoulders. The European Investment Bank Group is committing €5 billion to research and innovation to battle the spread of the coronavirus and aid in the development of a vaccine.

The European Investment Bank provided digital infrastructure and equipment to around 150 primary and secondary schools in Croatia. Twenty of these schools got specialized assistance in the form of gear, software, and services to help them integrate the teaching and administrative operations.

The EIB assisted Magyar Telekom in Hungary, Telekom Slovenije, and the Warminsko-Mazurskie region of Poland in upgrading their fiber networks, as well as updating mobile broadband in Bulgaria. We assisted in the construction of local fiber networks in densely inhabited and poorly inhabited areas of Malta and Cyprus. These efforts are currently ensuring that teleworking is more effective across Europe.

'''QEV Technologies, a Spanish firm that specializes in drive systems and other parts for electric cars, halted normal operations to assist healthcare facilities in Catalonia in their response to the coronavirus outbreak. QEV has begun importing respirators and producing parts for respirators using its 3D technology, after signing a funding agreement with the EIB last year. Protective masks and visors for healthcare personnel are also available from the firm. ''' One-third of the world's food is thrown away. According to the United Nations, the resources used to produce this squandered food are equivalent to 3.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions and three times the volume of Lake Geneva. Food waste happens mostly at the end of the food supply chain, at the point of consumption, in industrialized nations. This comprises both individual families and kitchens that are “made to order.”

'''Duffy, based in the United Kingdom, co-founded Winnow in 2013 with Marc Zornes, an American entrepreneur. Over 1,000 commercial kitchens in more than 40 countries utilize the company's technology. ''' The European Investment Bank (EIB) has issued a €500 million loan to one of AMPERE Gestion's affordable housing funds, which was guaranteed by the Investment Plan for Europe. The money were used to help create 13 000 affordable housing units, including the Symphonie building, which CDC Habitat manages on behalf of an investment trust.

CDC Habitat swiftly established itself as a pioneer in affordable housing after being established under the Finance Law of 2017, attracting institutional investors to invest in several funds managed by its subsidiary, AMPERE Gestion. Caisse des Dépôts has a subsidiary called CDC Habitat. The European Investment Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme created the Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP) in 2015 to assist a UN project dubbed Sustainable Energy for All. REPP was established with $67 million from the United Kingdom's International Climate Finance initiative, administered by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in 2015, and $128 million in 2018. Renewable Energy Performance Platform was established with a five-year goal of improving energy access for at least two million Africans. It has so far invested around $45 million to renewable energy projects in 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Solar power and hydropower are among the energy methods used in the projects.

The percentage of residences with access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest in the world. In some remote regions, fewer than one in every 20 households has electricity. The European Investment Bank backed the construction of the Lysters' flat, as well as 1,512 others around Ireland. The EU bank places a high premium on social and affordable housing. This is because the market frequently fails to offer appropriate, safe, and energy-efficient housing for low-income people, resulting in public health issues and shortages of vital employees in important areas.

With the Housing Finance Agency, a corporation funded by the Ministry of Housing, Planning and Local Government, the European Investment Bank works on Irish social housing.

The European Union bank lends to the agency, which then funds "authorized housing organisations" like Clid. Since 2014, the bank has lent the agency €350 million, and it is presently evaluating a new €200 million financing request from the Housing Finance Agency.

Clúid is a metric for the influence of EU banks on the rate of social housing building. New construction accounted for less than 6% of its activity two years ago. By 2020, it will have increased to 55%. Clúid plans to construct 1 700 dwelling units in the next three years.

The first 534 housing units will be built, operated, and maintained during a 25-year contract by a collaboration of the Macquarie Group, John Sisk Construction, Choice and Oaklee Housing, and European Investment Bank investment of €60 million.

Investments made by the European Investment Bank Group in 2017 alone are estimated to boost EU GDP by 1.1 percent and generate 1.2 million jobs by 2021. Even in 2036, the EIB's 2017 investments will have increased EU GDP by 0.7 percent, and 650,000 new jobs will have been created. Xylowatt runs a biomass plant that provides sustainable energy to the Mont-Godinne Hospital. The hospital is affiliated with the Catholic Institution of Louvain, Belgium's largest French-language university. Xylowatt provides 50 percent of the hospital's power by burning woodchips, sawdust, tree branches, broken pallets, and wood packaging in a cutting-edge "gasifier."

The Xylowatt plant was developed with funding from the European Investment Bank and the European Commission's Private Finance for Energy Efficiency initiative. A large number of young individuals are employed in the Oradea waterpark. It presently employs 131 individuals, with an average age of just 26, and many students benefit from part-time work. To repair the building, enhance exhibits, and recruit employees, the Podtatranské Museum received a €1.6 million loan from the European Investment Bank's funding package for eastern Slovakia. The Emscher renaturation project, which is funded by a total of €1.3 billion in EU bank finance, protects and generates 1400 employment per year. DARS received a € 51 million loan from the European Investment Bank in 2017 to create an electronic tolling system for cars weighing more over 3.5 tonnes. Klaipedos Nafta received a €87 million loan from the European Investment Bank to develop and operate a liquefied natural gas import facility in Klaipeda. The terminal consists of a floating gas storage vessel and 18 kilometers of pipelines that transport the gas across Lithuania. In far northern Europe, Klaipeda hosts one of the few ice-free ports. The donor funds and technical assistance grant are part of the European Investment Bank's Economic Resilience Initiative, which aims to better prepare the Western Balkans for economic shocks caused by natural catastrophes or migration.

“The project supports the goals of the Resilience Initiative, as it will deliver benefits to around 65 000 people,” says Guido Clary, a European Investment Bank loan officer working on the project. Clary went on to say that the initiative will improve Tirana's hygienic and health conditions, as well as its residents' quality of life. In the years 2013-2017, the energy projects the European Investment Bank signed resulted in yearly CO2 emissions reductions of nearly 8 million tonnes, the equivalent of 1.7 million automobiles driven for a year. The EIB has invested approximately €50 billion in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid projects during the previous five years. Solar and wind power have become considerably more affordable as a result of this loan. Since 2013, EIB renewable energy projects have added 38,000 MW of generation capacity to the global grid, enough clean energy to power 45 million homes.

According to the European Commission climate policy, investment in energy systems would have to rise to 2.8 percent of GDP by 2050, up from 2% now, to establish a carbon-neutral economy. From 2030 onwards, this will require an extra expenditure of €175 billion to €290 billion per year (excluding transportation). The EIB-advised Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund contributed €12 million to the €60 million Frontier fund (GEEREF). Frontier Energy II, the successor fund, concluded with $227 million in investment at the end of 2018, with GEEREF continuing to play an anchor role by investing $20.9 million in March 2017. Frontier Energy II has received 45 percent of its funding from the private sector.

Frontier has committed to six modest hydro, solar, and geothermal energy projects in East Africa, totaling 139 megawatts of power. The 5 MW Siti hydro project in Bilbo District, Eastern Uganda, is one of them. The Siti plant, which has been operational from 2018, takes use of the Siti river's hydroelectric potential as it flows through a series of rapids in the Mount Elgon region's settlement of Chesowari.

Another minor hydro plant with a capacity of 16.5 MW will be operational in four months downstream. To the west, a 5.4 MW plant absorbs the energy of the river Lubilia's falling water as it descends 264 meters in a sequence of rapids in and around Kawembe, a settlement in the Rwenzori highlands' foothills. In 2018, Madrid and Oslo banned all non-resident vehicles from their downtown areas.

In Paris, bike lanes are being doubled, while electric car incentives are being created. The French capital, like Brussels, is banning the most polluting automobiles from key districts.

Copenhagen is aiming for just 25% of trips to be made by automobile, whereas Vienna is aiming for 20%. Berlin is mimicking London's "superhighways" for cyclists.

15 of the top 20 biggest cities in the world for social cohesiveness are located in Europe.

The European Union's services trade surplus rose from $16 billion in 2000 to more than $250 billion in 2018. The Greek Inter-Ministerial PPP Committee authorized two Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects in September 2017 and October 2018, including eight schools in the Cretan Municipality of Chania and 13 schools on the island of Rhodes. That has a huge influence on a large number of young people's lives.

Due to the economic crisis of 2008, the structure and financial closing of two school PPP projects, totaling 24 schools, posed a substantial problem in 2012. To restore the project's economic viability, the European Investment Bank used the EU financial engineering tool JESSICA in conjunction with its own loans. JESSICA supplied € 35.8 million in addition to € 35.8 million in EIB finance for a total investment cost of €110 million. In July 2017, the Polish Council of Ministers approved the Policy for the Development of Public-Private Partnerships.

In 2019, the Ministry offered public authorities with educational initiatives as well as a comprehensive advice service on all areas of public-private partnerships. Poland is developing PPP Guidelines to standardize and enhance the quality of many parts of the PPP process, following the lead of the UK and other PPP-experienced nations. In September 2018, the first installment on PPP Project Preparation was released.

SMEs
Cokido is a bottom-up approach that unites neighborhood families to establish a participatory childcare option. Working with local governments, institutions, and workplaces, the organization secures safe and well-equipped childcare facilities.

Cokido presently supports 1 600 families in Flanders and is launching trial groups in Italy, Hungary, and Greece, as well as New Zealand.

The European Investment Bank Institute's 2020 Social Innovation Tournament, which finds and rewards outstanding societal entrepreneurs confronting social challenges, recognized Cokido's achievements, with the scheme being one of 15 finalists.

Cokido costs €30 to €50 per year per family, and €8 500 per year per group, to operate Cokido programs for businesses or other organizations. Women are under-represented in Ugandan financial services: women control around 39 percent of Ugandan firms, yet they receive just 9 percent of commercial loans. They are 40% less likely to hold a bank account than males. In addition, just 25% of women utilize mobile money.

Uganda's National Financial Inclusion Strategy seeks to address this, with the Uganda Development Bank (UDBL) leading the way. The European Investment Bank is assisting them with a €15 million loan line as part of the East Africa SME-focused Regional Facility and our SheInvest for Africa project.

Uganda's National Financial Inclusion Strategy is now focusing especially on female-led private enterprise through a new project dubbed the 2X Challenge. The 2X Challenge is a pledge by development finance institutions to invest $3 billion in women's economic empowerment by the end of 2020. The 2X Challenge's purpose is to promote women as entrepreneurs, business leaders, and workers.

Agriculture and agribusiness have the most women-led firms in UDBL's portfolio, although there are exceptions. Delight Supplies, for example, is Uganda's leading distributor of cosmetics and beauty items, serving consumers across the nation from its Kampala headquarters. According to the European Investment Bank climate survey from 2020, 70% of Europeans have either switched to a green energy supplier or are prepared to do so. This ratio is 82 percent in Italy.

The survey showed a high concern for the climate from the 30 000 individuals surveyed, explaining that a majority of respondent are also prepared to pay a new tax in accordance with climate laws.

90% of Europeans believe their children will experience the effects of climate change in their daily lives.

Because of climate change, 33% of Europeans feel they will have to relocate to a colder or warmer area or nation.

Only 9% of Europeans do not think climate change is occurring, compared to 18% in the United States.

Southern Europeans have been most affected by climate change, but are also more likely to believe that climate change is reversible.

80% of Chinese surveyed believe climate change is still reversible, and 72% feel their individual actions can make a difference in reversing the effects of climate change. According to a recent study by the European Investment Bank's Innovation Finance Advisory division, Financing the digitalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises: The enabling role of Digital Innovation Hubs, the European regions most impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, such as Italy, also tend to be those where small businesses are less digitalised (DIHs).

Only around 20% of European small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) are substantially digitalized, compared to almost 50% of major businesses.

Digital innovation centres are one-stop shops that assist businesses in using technology to enhance their goods, services, and processes in order to increase competitiveness. The centres provide the type of digital assistance that Europe's small businesses badly need, especially now.

Small companies are important to the European economy as they account for 99.8% of non-financial enterprises in the European Union, and employ two-thirds of the workforce in the EU.

Small and medium-sized companies make up 56.2% of the non-financial sector. Smaller companies account for more than 60% of the value contributed to the non-financial sector in Belgium, Italy, and Spain, three of the nations worst hit by the epidemic.

An estimated 50% of Europe's small firms may fail because they lack the substantial financial reserves required to weather the crisis. In the Italian province of Lombardy, one of the most hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the local digital innovation hub collaborated with a regional industry organization, Confindustria Bergamo, to address a surgical mask shortage. The center ran a large local campaign to assist area businesses in transitioning from textiles, fashion, or chemicals to manufacturing surgical masks for health workers.

COVID-19 activities have also been run by other digital innovation centres. DIH-HERO, a pan-European network of Digital Innovation Hubs specializing in healthcare robotics, has launched a COVID-19 tender to promote rapidly deployable technology and solutions in the health sector.

In Ukraine, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a €50 million loan for UNIT.City, a new innovation park in Kyiv. The initiative will help finance one of Central and Eastern Europe's largest technological clusters, a 25-hectare complex that contains start-ups, IT training centers, high-tech businesses, research centers, incubators, and accelerators. InnovFin Science is funding the project.

In response to COVID-19, the EIB Group is establishing a €25 billion Pan-European Guarantee fund. It is projected that the guarantee fund would raise up to €200 billion. Enda Tamweel has made over 3 million microloans to over 900,000 people in the 30 years since its inception, infusing more than €1.6 billion into the local economy.

Microfinance institutions, such as Enda Tamweel, exist to assist those who are unable to access the regular banking system. This comprises those living in rural or impoverished regions where the informal sector thrives, accounting for 34% of Tunisia's GDP..

The European Investment Bank is able to support small and micro-enterprises in the EU's Southern Neighbourhood and the Western Balkans with loans in local currency. The EIB already uses its experience in the Southern Neighbourhood countries through the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnernship, and in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries through the Cotonou mandate.

The [Economic Resilience Initiative] was established to provide long-term solutions that are critical for steady economic development, assisting countries in being better equipped to deal with shocks.Its female empowerment and inclusion programs include financial literacy and socioeconomic rights training. According to the French government, around 13 million French citizens are “digitally excluded.”

Konexio had been operating out of a dozen Parisian centers as well as a 40,000-person refugee camp in Malawi. Students acquire fundamental computer skills, internet navigation, and programs such as Word and Excel. Konexio is able to provide free lessons due to various collaborations and government assistance. Whole Surplus was quickly expanding before the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2019, the firm had 17 workers and has subsequently added an additional 16 people. Because of the crisis's disruption, Whole Surplus switched its focus from reselling food goods to distributing them to those in need through food banks, utilizing them as animal feed, and recycling.

According to Olcay, the notion of food banks is very new in Turkey. They were first officially recognized in 2014, and when Fazla Gida began in 2017, there were just three or four in a nation with a population of more over 80 million people. He claims that there are now more than 80, the most of which are organized by Fazla Gida or in collaboration with Turkish municipalities, the Red Cross, and other organizations.

Fazla Gida has been delivering meals to 330,000 individuals every month, and Olcay hopes to increase that number to 600,000 by the end of the year. In addition, the business has been providing food to refugee camps in southern Turkey, where many Syrian refugees are staying. Adopta un Abuelo, or Adopt a Grandparent, is a volunteer network aimed at bringing visitors to retirement homes around Spain. It was created by Alberto Cabanes.

Alberto aims to spread Adopt a Grandparent to other nations. He believes there is a need because around 60% of care facility clients do not get visits.

Climate Bank Roadmap 2021-2025

2019 was the second-warmest year in the previous 140 years, according to the latest Global Climate Report. Since 2015, the five hottest years in the 1880-2019 dataset have all happened. This is accompanied by an unparalleled rate of biodiversity loss and major risks to global ecosystems. These developments raise the risk to individuals – to the well-being of today's generation and future generations.These effects are expected to be felt disproportionately by the poorer communities and regions across the world.

The European Union has become the first area to embrace climate neutrality by 2050 through the European Green Deal, and it has committed to forming Green Alliances with partner nations and regions across the world.

To meet the long-term UN SDGs, sustained long-term investment in green innovation is required: to decarbonize the physical capital stock – energy, industry, and transportation infrastructure – and ensure its resilience to a changing future climate; to preserve and enhance natural capital – forests, oceans, and wetlands; and to train and reskill people to work in a climate-neutral economy.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has imposed an unprecedented strain on nations' economies and government finances, with the EU economy operating at 5% capacity. The eurozone's budget deficit is anticipated to rise to 8.5 percent of GDP in 2020, up from 0.6 percent last year.

The European Union has taken strong action to assure recovery through Next Generation EU, a €750 billion plan comprised of grants and loans. Nonetheless, the COVID-19 recovery is expected to dominate global public finances in the near term, heeding demands from various stakeholders to ensure that short-term expenditure in support of recovery is consistent with long-term goals.

The EIB Group is able to assist the development of a broader creative, green ecosystem through the EIF: venture capital funds, technical transfer, business perspectives, and private-sector equity (infrastructure funds) in general.

The EIB funded USD 84 billion in climate action investment from 2016 to 2019, and it is on pace to meet its objective of delivering USD 100 billion in climate action finance by the end of 2020. Outside of the EU, the EIB is on pace to meet its pledge to raise its share of climate action finance in developing countries to 35% by 2020.

In terms of climate resilience, in February 2019, the EIB established a Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) system. In a significant breakthrough, all new investment projects are now routinely tested for climate change risk throughout the evaluation stage.

Increased summer heatwaves and droughts in southern Europe, as well as winter floods in Central Europe, pose major concerns. According to estimates, the EU economy might contract by 3% as early as 2050, with southern and south-eastern Europe suffering the most.

In early 2021, the European Commission will present a new EU Adaptation Strategy. Following a favorable assessment of the 2013 EU Adaptation Plan, it has issued a Blueprint for a new, more ambitious EU strategy,, emphasizing the high cost-benefit ratios of adaptation measures and outlining potential features for a "European Green Deal adaptation strategy" aimed at improving understanding, reinforcing planning, and accelerating action.