Critical intervention points for European adaptation to cascading climate change impacts

Abstract

In an interconnected world, climate change impacts can cascade across sectors and regions, creating systemic risks. Here we analyse cascading climate change impacts on the EU, originating from outside the region, and identify critical intervention points for adaptation. Using network analysis, we integrate stakeholder-co-produced impact chains with quantitative data for 102 countries across foreign policy, human security, trade and finance. Our archetypal impact cascade model reveals critical intervention points related to water, livelihoods, agriculture, infrastructure and economy, and violent conflict. Livelihood instability, with violence exacerbating conditions in conflict-prone regions, tends to amplify risks of cascading impacts emerging from low-income countries. High-income countries can trigger cascading impacts through, for example, reduced crop exports. Our findings highlight the importance of policy coherence in addressing interconnected vulnerabilities rather than isolated risks. Thus, agricultural intensification without integrated water management may exacerbate scarcity, whereas safeguarding livelihoods alleviates cascading risks related to forced migration, violent conflict and instability.

The work of all authors for this publication has been supported by the European Commission H2020-funded project CASCADES (CAScading Climate risks: towards ADaptive and resilient European Societies, grant agreement no. 821010). C.A. acknowledges support from and the Federal Foreign Office of Germany (grant agreement no. AA38220002). N.W. acknowledges support from the Center for Critical Computational Studies and the Pb-TIP project. A. Detges thanks A. Kibaroglu and O. Brown for their continuous support in designing and implementing the stakeholder engagement process. I.M. acknowledges support from the G24-V20 task force on Climate, Development and the IMF. We are grateful to all stakeholders and experts who contributed to the co-production activities. We thank O. Grafham, R. Ebrey and P. van Ackern for their support throughout the stakeholder engagement process, D. D. Padinjaremury for her help with formatting the manuscript and B. Naprawa for support with the figures.