Cities are home to a majority of Europe’s population and are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.

Europe’s cities are facing the impacts of climate change ever more regularly and severely. After 2023’s record summer heat, flooding and heatwaves, the need to invest in resilience has never been clearer.

A new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) has taken stock of adaption across Europe’s urban centres, looking at what actions cities are taking and what is already working.

It finds that almost all European cities are using nature-based solutions as their tool of choice to improve resilience. Of the 19,000 climate action plans surveyed, 91 per cent included options like maintaining parks, urban forests or green roofs and facilitating natural water retention.

Not only are they “effective for cooling and water retention”, the report says, they also provide other benefits like more recreational spaces or a reduction in pollution.

Despite the uptake in nature-based solutions, however, the […]