Yesterday, the ERRIN Adaptation Task Force organised a hybrid event providing an overview of the available financial and technical support for regions and communities under the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change.

This meeting invited three projects to present the support services and opportunities that they offer to regions and communities to achieve the objectives of the Mission (The Mission Implementation Platform - MIP4Adapt, CLIMAAX and Pathways2Resilience). The Mission Implementation Platform presented the support that is provided within the Community of Practice as well as their Technical Assistance, which focuses on stakeholder and citizen engagement, support on adaptation planning, and support to access relevant funding and financing for climate adaptation demonstration projects.

The Platform focuses its offer on the Mission Charter signatories, for which apart from the technical assistance, a Community of Practice (CoP) has been created to provide space for knowledge sharing and strengthen coordination and collaboration among the participants. Additionally, a do-it-yourself manual was developed by the Platform to support regions in their stakeholder engagement activities and a helpdesk has been set up to assist with a range of different questions.

For other regions and local authorities, events and networking opportunities are provided as well as access to solutions and stories uploaded to the Mission portal. The annual Mission Forum was also confirmed to take place in May 2024 in Brussels.

The CLIMAAX project presented its support to regions for their climate risk assessment work. The project will provide a framework for regional climate risk assessment as well as a toolbox to support this work, which has been tested and shaped by five pilot regions from across Europe. Finally, the project will provide financial support of up to €300 000 to at least 60 regions and communities to support their climate risk assessment work for two years. The call for financial support opened on 8 December and will close on 8 March 2024. More information on the open call can be found here.

Finally, the Pathways2Resilience project presented how the programme will allocate €21 million in sub-grants via two open calls to support at least 100 European regions and communities to co-design locally-led resilience pathways. Selected regions and communities will be following the programme’s transformational adaptation framework – the Regional Resilience Journey, and will be able to take part of a range of capacity-building activities and support services. The first call for applicants, which will close on 22 February 2024, will select a first cohort of 40 regions and communities for the programme. More information on the open call can be found here.

More practical information about the meeting and presentations are available here.

Background: The EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change has more than 300 Mission Charter signatories, of which close to 290 represent regions and local authorities that have declared their willingness to take steps towards achieving climate resilience in their regions and communities. To support regions and communities in achieving this ambition, the EU has funded several projects to provide support services to Charter signatories and beyond in the different steps of the journey. Read more about the Mission here.