Pathways2Resilience launches to accelerate climate adaptation in European regions

Amsterdam – The Netherlands, 31 January 2023: Today marks the start of Pathways2Resilience, an initiative aimed at co-developing pathways towards climate-resilient regions in Europe. Designed to increase the climate resilience of at least 100 European regions and communities, Pathways2Resilience will also ignite a wave of political commitments and innovation agendas in climate adaptation for the coming years.

The climate crisis is already having major effects on everyday life in Europe. If we are to survive and continue to thrive, adapting to climate change and building climate resilience is crucial. Regions and communities have a major role to play in enabling rapid and far-reaching change.  According to a recent opinion of the Committee of the Regions (2021), 90 per cent of climate change adaptation measures are currently undertaken by local and regional authorities.

But while many inspiring stand-alone examples of innovative adaptation actions are flourishing across Europe, the complexity of thriving in the face of climate shocks and stresses means that many regions and communities struggle to avoid losses.

Launched to implement the Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change, Pathways2Resilience proposes a systemic innovation and capability-driven approach to strengthening climate resilience more efficiently across regions, communities, and their ecosystems.

The initiative will support more than 100 European regions and communities in designing pathways, plans and innovation agendas to become climate resilient by 2030, thus contributing to all three of the Mission Adaptation’s objectives, namely:

• preparing and planning for climate resilience,
• accelerating transformations towards climate resilience,
• paving the way to demonstrating transformations to climate resilience.

“In line with both the new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change and the objectives of the European Green Deal, the Pathways2Resilience project takes an innovative systemic approach to regional climate resilience, catalysing on the European economic and social development, boosting its net zero commitments and commanding a markedly different approach,” says Dr. Fernando Diaz Lopez from EIT Climate-KIC, coordinator of Pathways2Resilience.

Over the next five years, Pathways2Resilience will mobilise regional interest and networks, progressively elevating the ambition and capability of regional public administrations and connecting innovation agendas. It will develop a Regional Resilience Journey framework and increase knowledge on adaptation options across different Key Community Systems, to equip regions and communities to develop climate resilience pathways and connected innovation agendas that are tailor-made to local challenges and needs. To achieve this, the initiative will foster cross-regional learning, collaboration, mentoring and capacity building, and citizens and stakeholder will be involved  in the co-creation of the pathways. Additionally, funding of €21M will be allocated across 100 regions and communities via two open call cycles.

Gathering 14 partners from 10 countries, Pathways2resilience is coordinated by EIT Climate-KIC, Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership focused on climate innovation to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The initiative builds upon the expertise of its partners, leveraging a vast array of knowledge and expertise, as well as access to an extensive  network of regions throughout Europe. It also involves regional network organisations, technical designers and innovators of transformative adaptation, adaptation finance experts, learning and capability-building specialists, and monitoring and innovation impact partners.

Media contact:
Anne-Sophie Garrigou, EIT Climate-KIC: anne-sophie.garrigou@climate-kic.org