Informe El medio ambiente en Europa: Estado y perspectivas 2020

PART 2
TABLE 7.8
Summary assessment — climate change risks to society
Past trends and outlook
Past trends
(10-15 years)
Outlook to 2030
Premature deaths due to heat waves and an increase in the incidence of several vector- and water-borne
diseases have been observed in Europe. Forest fires facilitated by extreme heat and drought have led to
considerable death tolls in recent years. There are no clear trends in the economic losses from extreme
weather events.
The past trends related to health impacts are projected to continue with ongoing climate change. The overall
economic impacts of climate change on Europe are primarily negative, but there is substantial variation across
regions and economic activities.
Prospects of meeting policy objectives/targets
2020
Robustness
There are no specific targets for climate-related health risks, but the Seventh Environment Action Programme
requires decisive progress to be made in adapting to climate change to safeguard from environment-related
pressures and risks to health. There is some evidence that repeated climatic extremes affecting the same
region (e.g. heat waves) lead to reduced health impacts because of adaptation.
Data on past climate-sensitive health impacts originate from different sources, including mandatory reporting,
official statistics and attribution analyses. The identification of trends is difficult because the most significant
events are very rare. An overall assessment of the impacts of climate change on health is hampered by the
lack of reliable estimates for cold-related health impacts. Data on economic losses from climate-related events
are derived from insurance data, including estimates of uninsured losses. Attribution of trends is difficult
because of the sparsity of the most costly events as well as concurrent developments in hazards, exposure
and vulnerability.
by appropriate adaptation measures.
However, adaptation generally comes
at a cost, there may be trade-offs
with other policy objectives, and
residual impacts remain (EEA, 2017c,
Section 6.3; EC, 2018b, Annex XIII).
Europe’s vulnerability to climate
change impacts occurring outside
Europe
European societies are also affected by
the indirect impacts of climate change
occurring outside Europe through various
pathways, such as international trade
and migration (Figure 7.9). These ‘crossborder
impacts’ can be triggered by a
single extreme weather event (e.g. a
temporary disruption of global supply
chains due to damaged production or
transport infrastructure following a flood),
by prolonged periods of extreme weather
(e.g. an extreme drought that increases
world market prices of agricultural
products) or by gradual climate change
(e.g. flooding of densely populated
coastal areas that triggers internal or
international migration). The strongest
evidence for Europe’s sensitivity to crossborder
impacts are the economic effects
of global price volatilities, disruptions
to transport networks and changes
in the Arctic environment. European
vulnerability to cross-border impacts of
climate change is expected to increase
in the coming decades, but quantitative
projections are not yet available (EEA,
2017c, Section 6.4; Ciscar et al., 2018).
Cross-border effects of climate change
can be addressed by a combination of
domestic and international policies.
7.4
Responses and prospects of
meeting agreed targets and
objectives
7.4.1
Climate change mitigation
A number of policies have played an
important role in reducing GHG emissions
over the past 27 years (EEA, 2018e).
In addition to the expected mitigation
effects of climate policies, there have
been positive indirect effects from other
policies that were not aimed at reducing
GHG emissions.
For instance, key EU polices such as the
Nitrates Directive, the market reform
of the common agricultural policy and
the Landfill Directive have had a positive
SOER 2020/Climate change
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