Since 2011, the CMCC Foundation leads the European Topic Centre on Climate Change impacts, vulnerability and Adaptation (ETC/CCA), a consortium of 14 European Institutions contracted by the European Environment Agency (EEA).
The centre assists the EEA in supporting and informing policy development and implementation in the area of climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation (CCIVA), the main supported policy process being the EU Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.
Five CMCC research divisions, that is RAAS (coordinator), ECIP, IAFES, CSP, REMHI, are involved in this consortium.

In the CMCC webinar “Informing and supporting climate policy: the European Topic Centre on Climate Change impacts, vulnerability and Adaptation (ETC/CCA)”, Silvia Medri, researcher at the CMCC Foundation (RAAS – Risk assessment and adaptation strategies Division) and current ETC/CCA coordinator, presented the ETC/CCA work while illustrating the role of the CMCC Foundation in this European initiative. More in detail, after an overview of the ETC/CCA, she illustrated some examples of its key activities, such as the evaluation of the European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT), the improvement of the coherence between climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, and recent findings on urban adaptation to climate change, aimed at supporting a science based policy making process.

Watch the video:

The European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT), is the main European Web Portal for climate change adaptation information in Europe. The platform is an initiative of the European Commission and the EEA, and helps users accessing and sharing information on: expected climate change in Europe; current and future vulnerability of regions and sectors; national and transnational adaptation strategies; adaptation case studies and potential adaptation options; tools that support adaptation planning.
In the framework of Climate-ADAPT, the ETC/CCA supports the EEA in content update, improvement, further development and dissemination; the centre has also contributed to the (first ever) evaluation of the achievement of the Climate-ADAPT core objectives (to be published in a EEA report in 2018) in a way that can contribute to the on-going evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy by the European Commission.
Three CMCC Divisions are involved in this task: RAAS (Task Manager 2011-2017 in the person of Silvia Medri), ECIP (Task Manager 2018 in the person of Valentina Giannini) and IAFES.

Enhancing the coherence between climate change adaptation (CCA) & disaster risk reduction (DRR) is another important theme of the ETC/CCA work, essential for reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience of societies. In 2017 the EEA released the report “Climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Europe”, with a major support by the ETC/CCA.
In this framework, the CMCC played a significant role in preparing the EEA report: scientific contributions were coordinated, among others, by Jaroslav Mysiak (Division Director of RAAS – Risk assessment and adaptation strategies at the CMCC Foundation), and many CMCC researchers of RAAS, REMHI and CSP divisions contributed to the report.

Another important topic addressed by the centre is urban adaptation to climate change. 
The CMCC Division involved in this task is ECIP, with Margaretha Breil as Task Manager.
The last publication on this issue is the ETC/CCA technical paper “Social vulnerability to climate change in European cities” (2018), a state of play on research and policy addressing social vulnerability and justice in urban climate change adaptation.

DOWNLOAD THE WEBINAR PRESENTATION BY RESEARCHER S. MEDRI (PDF).

For further information:

The EEA official website.

The ETC/CCA official website.

The Climate-ADAPT official website
.

Read the news “Preparing Europe for climate change: coordination is key to reduce risks posed by extreme weather“.

Read the news “European cities work to address social vulnerability in climate adaptation planning“.