Supporting regional and local authorities in developing their Action Plans towards climate resilience

Expected Outcome:In support of the European Green Deal, the Adaptation Strategy and the EU Mission on Adaptation to climate change, the successful proposal will accelerate adaptation efforts of regional and local authorities.

The project is expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• Each Action Plan that regional and local authorities have developed sets in motion the implementation of a concrete list of actions to advance towards climate resilience.
• The implementation of the developed Action Plans is ensured thanks to the fact that each Action Plan includes a tailored analysis (or options list) of how the costs of each action can be addressed.
• The relevant government departments, citizens, academia, social partners, the private sector and other stakeholders are mobilised to contribute to local climate adaptation.

Scope:This topic relates to the Mission’s first and second objectives[1] and aims to have at least 70 regional and local authorities that will have formulated their climate adaptation Action Plans.

As described by the first European Climate Risk assessment and addressed by the Commission’s Communication on Managing Climate Risks, asymmetrical exposure to climate impacts exacerbates the already existing disparities between regions in terms of need for climate adaptation, risk prevention and preparedness.

This action supports the very heart of Mission Adaptation: since climate impacts and adaptive capacities differ greatly across regions, tailor-made responses and measures, at the regional or local levels, are required for positive and just transitions towards climate resilience. This action will provide the necessary tailored knowledge, expertise, and services to support regions and local authorities in the formulation of such Action Plans, as well as preparing the ground for the swift implementation needed to accelerate the transition.

Description of the Action Plans

The Action Plans should include:

• The analysis of different possible future scenarios and probabilities of impacts, including different solutions and innovations for relevant sectors, that are robust and cost-effective across these possible futures.
• A set of concrete actions to be implemented at the regional/local level (identifying the regional/local actors in charge of their implementation), including innovation activities and their quantified effects wherever possible.
• A timeline of implementation, including possible intermediate milestones.
• An indication of the expected costs for the region/local authority related to each action put forward by the Action Plan and for the entire Plan, and the estimated avoided losses.
• An analysis on how such costs can be addressed in particular by leveraging additional funding at regional, national, European levels[2] (including via private funding sources) and -where appropriate- other relevant non-financial considerations to facilitate implementation.
• A framework to monitor the implementation of the actions, based on the common framework developed by the project while facilitating synergies between such framework and the one created to monitor the implementation of Mission Adaptation.

The Action Plans should also include innovative solutions developed and tested in the context of Mission Adaptation, in view of enabling further replication: to do so, collaboration with the project stemming from HORIZON-MISS-2024-CLIMA-01-01 will be key.

While remaining fully centred around climate adaptation, the Action Plans – where appropriate and depending on the regional/local needs – are encouraged to address the nexus mitigation/adaptation by looking at co-benefits, including the interlinkage with other crisis (pollution and biodiversity loss). To avoid maladaptive practice, regions and local authorities are encouraged to conduct ex-ante evaluation of the actions planned.

The Action Plans should take into account the findings of the European Environment Agency’s European Climate Risk Assessment Report, as well as the information, outcomes and priorities identified in the national climate change adaptation strategies and in other relevant programmes or legal frameworks[3].

The Action Plans should also include considerations on their social impacts and ways to overcome them, including by considering the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

To do so, the process of developing the Action Plans should be inclusive and participatory, engaging all relevant stakeholders, including public authorities from different levels of government, private sector, universities, civil society, social partners, and in particular citizens and vulnerable groups.

Financial support to third parties

Regional and local authorities will lead the development of their respective Action Plans.

Proposals should develop a common framework of intervention, setting-up the blueprint for the modular Action Plans that will need to be subsequently tailored to each beneficiary’s context. Such general framework should also include the analysis of the possible additional sources of income that can be further leveraged in individual Action Plans.

The proposals must provide financial support to third parties in the form of grants to allow at least 70 regional and local authorities to develop their Action Plans to address the locally relevant climate risks.

Eligible third parties are regional and local authorities in EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries (and/or other entities acting on their behalf), provided that they did not receive financial support under the Pathways2Resilience[4] project nor the concerned territories were already covered by Pathways2Resilience.

At least 70% of the total amount of the EU requested contribution should be for financial support to third parties. The (first) cascade call should be launched in the first 12 months of the project.

Proposals must describe how they intend to provide financial support to third parties, in accordance with the FSTP Annex provided with the application form. They should also specifically take account of provisions on ‘financial support to third parties’ set out in General Annex B and incorporate them into the proposal. While remaining as simple as possible, proposals should specifically consider elements within the FSTP scheme to address geographical balance and inclusivity/equity.

To this purpose, learning from the experience of projects with financial support to third parties/cascading funding could be considered: on top of consulting publicly available information on lessons learnt, the project retained for granting is expected to hold dedicated exchanges with the projects CLIMAAX, Pathways2Resilience and the Mission Secretariat during the preparation of the cascade funding call.

Moreover, the project should collaborate with the Mission National Hubs[5] also in view of facilitating good practice sharing and replicability at National level.

Proposals & general considerations

Proposals should describe how the consortium would:

• Define and adopt a common framework guiding the assistance to the regional and local authorities.
• Structure and organise the selection of regional and local authorities and their local partner organisations.
• Support the regional and local authorities in the various steps of the process developing their Action Plans.
• Describe how it intends to integrate its work into the Mission and its activities so that knowledge and good practices can inspire others and be further replicated.

In fact, as an important contributor to the Adaptation Mission, the project should closely cooperate with the Mission Implementation Platform[6], including (but not limited to) actively inform and engage with the regions and local authorities already involved in the Mission (e.g. Charter Signatories, Community of Practice), as those have shown their commitment to accelerate action on climate resilience. The project is also expected to contribute to the monitoring of the Mission and proposals are encouraged to link up their monitoring to the framework developed by the project stemming from HORIZON-MISS-2024-CLIMA-01-03 and dedicate appropriate resources to this task.

Finally, operational links and collaboration should be established with the Climate-ADAPT platform, and the relevant projects from the Mission, other parts of Horizon Europe or other relevant EU programmes[7] and initiatives[8].

Applicants should acknowledge these requests and already account for these obligations in their proposal, making adequate provisions in terms of resources and budget to engage and collaborate with the Mission.

[1] Specific objective 1: Preparing and planning for climate resilience; Specific objective 2: Accelerating transformations to climate resilience. Link to the Mission Implementation Plan: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-09/climat_mission_implementation_plan_final_for_publication.pdf

[2] Such as the CAP, Horizon Europe, LIFE, ERDF and Cohesion Fund, ESF+, Digital Europe Programme, Technical Support Instrument, InvestEU, Just Transition Fund, Erasmus+ programme.

[3] Such as the information provided by the European Climate and Health Observatory, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) National Collaboration Programme, as well as the outcomes and priorities of regional smart specialisation strategies established under Cohesion Policy, the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy, and the revised TEN-T Regulation (to be published). Moreover, the body of environmental law under the European Green Deal should be considered (including but not limited to the Nature Restauration Law under the Biodiversity Strategy).

[4] This information is or will be publicly available on the website of Pathways2Resilience. For instance, here are the beneficiaries of the first call: https://www.pathways2resilience.eu/40-regions-unite-to-build-climate-resilience-for-53-million-europeans/

[5] Established under topic HORIZON-MISS-2024-CLIMA-01-02

[6] Currently managed by MIP4Adapt under the contract CINEA/2022/OP/0013/SI2.884597 funded by the European Union. About MIP4Adapt (europa.eu)

[7] Such as Destination Earth.

[8] For example, the project could look at lessons learnt from the Technical Support Instrument, which could provide support in the implementation of the Action Plans, while ensuring there are no overlaps or double funding.