EU Covenant of Mayors contributes to the final conclusions of the Climate Resilience Dialogue

Addressing climate resilience

For the last two years, the Climate Resilience Dialogue gathered a group of stakeholders set up at the initiative of the European Commission. Its aim was to discuss ways to narrow the climate protection gap - the gulf between economic losses and insured losses from the materialisation of climate-related risks - and increase the resilience of the economies and societies to the effects of climate change.  

The dialogue provided a safe space for an open exchange between stakeholders including public authorities, supervisors, consumer organisations, and the insurance industry on ways to address this climate protection gap and increase climate resilience in the EU, with a focus on climate adaptation.  

The EU Covenant of Mayors was an active participant in this dialogue, ensuring perspectives, challenges, good practices and experiences of local authorities were considered within conversations and actions proposed in the final report.

The final conclusions

This summer, the final report of this dialogue has been released, bringing together insights and learnings from these discussions. It puts forward actions for increasing climate resilience in the EU and addressing the climate protection gap, with a focus on adaptation measures.  

The report highlights best practices and provides guidance on raising climate risk awareness, improving risk assessments, and implementing effective risk reduction strategies.

It also explores the potential for public-private partnerships (PPP) in insurance and examines the pros and cons of other insurance-based solutions that could address the climate protection gap.  

The role of local authorities

The actions set forth in the report can be implemented by different stakeholders and are a collective contribution to individual and community resilience against various hazards in a variety of ways: by promoting risk awareness, preparedness, and proactive measures in the face of climate change.

While the proposed actions require stakeholder groups with primary responsibility to take the lead, the buy-in and coordinated efforts of other stakeholder groups are essential.

Europe's local authorities are a critical player in moving forward proposed actions. As such, they need to be supported to grow their capacities and knowledge on this topic of climate insurance.