More than 70% of European cities are not adapting to climate change in a consistent and coherent way.

That is the headline finding of our new study, published in Nature Climate Change, on how European cities are – or are not – preparing for a warming world.

We find that nearly half of the 327 cities that we assess have not published an adaptation plan, leaving us unsure as to whether or how they are trying to reduce climate threats.

For the 167 cities that do have adaptation plans – ranging from Alborg and Aarhus in Denmark through to Zilona Gorá in Poland and Zaragoza in Spain – we find that the climate-related measures within them are often inconsistent.

In other words, their climate risk assessments, policy goals, adaptation measures and monitoring programmes are not aligned.

For example, 81 plans identified the increased risk of storms and winds from climate change, but only 23 of these plans (28%) mentioned increasing resilience to such severe weather events as a specific policy goal.

These inconsistencies contribute to a “gap” that the UN has identified between the adaptation goals that societies have adopted and the measures they have implemented to try and meet them.

Our study finds that Nuremberg in Germany has the largest gap in its adaptation plan, with Stuttgart and Schwerin in Germany and Birmingham in the UK close behind. 

The gap is particularly alarming because Europe is warming twice as fast as any other continent – and it is a continent that has had considerable financial and institutional support for adaptation for decades.

Consistent and coherent

Much of the existing research into the “adaptation gap” focuses on the difference between the climate measures a city needs and what action has actually been taken.

But there is another key part of the adaptation gap – whether the policies and measures are actually internally consistent.

Ideally, we would expect adaptation efforts to be “joined-up” along the policy chain.

For example, where climate risk assessments suggest that a city faces specific threats from storms, flash flooding, heatwaves, forest fires or drought, these vulnerabilities should be linked directly to the municipality’s adaptation goals, policies and the monitoring and evaluation processes.

Additionally, we might hope that city governments would involve those at risk from severe climate impacts, such as vulnerable population groups, industries and sectors of the economy, in decisions as to how they will be protected.

If these different phases of adaptation management are misaligned and inconsistent, we can see how cities and societies are less likely to deal with the impact of severe weather events effectively.

‘Consistency checks’

We developed a series of “consistency checks” to identify the extent to which different stages of the adaptation management process are aligned.

These include:

1. Consistency between hazards identified in a risk assessment and a city’s adaptation goals.
2. Consistency between the risks to specific sectors and detailed policy measures.
3. Consistency between the risks faced by vulnerable groups and detailed policy measures.
4. Consistency between the policy measures targeted at vulnerable groups and monitoring and evaluation processes to ensure they are being implemented.
5. Consistency between the risks faced by vulnerable groups and their involvement in decision-making.

We use these checks to assess the adaptation strategies of European cities. For this, we use an existing dataset of the local adaptation plans of more than 300 cities.

(The dataset covers the 27 member countries of the EU, plus the UK. It aims to cover around 20% of the population of each country and include national and regional capitals where possible. In general, it covers large cities with more than 250,000 people and medium-size urban areas with more than 50,000 people.)

We find that nearly half (49%) of the plans do align climate risks with climate goals. Slightly more than half (52%) align identified sectoral risks with respective measures, but only regarding specific economic sectors and industries.

For example, 68 cities (77%) identify particular risks for buildings, while 70 cities (80%) highlight risks to the water industry and include details of measures to protect these sectors.

However, identified risks for vulnerable groups, such as risks for older people, those on low-incomes and ethnic minorities, were only followed-up with consistent measures in 43% of the plans.

Also, only 4% of cities consider or involve vulnerable groups in monitoring and evaluation (if they identified these groups at risk) – and only 1% of cities were effectively engaging vulnerable communities in plan development.

Given that the least powerful members of society are often the most vulnerable to climate change, there is a real risk that they will be further exposed to severe weather events.

Overall, when assessing each of the five consistency checks in all 167 plans, we find inconsistencies in more than two-thirds (70%). This is despite the fact that adaptation planning in Europe has improved over time – as we highlighted in a previous Carbon Brief article.

The findings are illustrated in the map below, which shows the 167 cities with adaptation plans. The coloured dots indicate the extent to which each city’s plan is inconsistent (indicating a potential adaptation gap) – taken as an average across the five checks set out in our study.

Green dots indicate plans that are fully consistent, with a sliding scale of inconsistency through yellow, orange and red. The maximum inconsistency identified in the study is an adaptation gap of 79.6% – found in Nuremberg, Germany. But Stuttgart and Schwerin in Germany and Birmingham in the UK are close behind, with an average “gap” score of more than 78%.

Lack of adaptation plans

Significantly, our research finds that only 167 of the 327 cities – just over half of those in the database – had even produced a climate adaptation plan by the study’s cut-off date of December 2020.

As such, we were unable to assess how a huge number of places across Europe are planning to deal with climate threats – regardless of whether their activities are misaligned or not.

(Although many cities will have published adaptation plans since this date, it is not clear how coherent their activities are likely to be, nor whether they take sufficient account of the needs of vulnerable groups.)

Overall, our research suggests a greater need for city and national governments to base their adaptation policies on robust risk assessments and to monitor progress accordingly – particularly with the most vulnerable social groups in society in mind.

Our findings highlight the importance of focusing on those who are most vulnerable to climate change, by involving them in decision-making and targeting specific measures at these groups.

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The post Guest post: More than 70% of adaptation plans for European cities are ‘inconsistent’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Guest post: More than 70% of adaptation plans for European cities are ‘inconsistent’

From Africa to Southeast Asia, the Trump administration is cancelling US support for projects designed to replace coal, oil and gas with clean energy, pushing instead for the use of American taxpayers’ money to support planet-heating fossil fuels.

Since Donald Trump took office in January, he has scrapped energy transition partnerships with South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam and is trying to halt US backing for the African Development Bank (AfDB) and multilateral Climate Investment Funds.

At the same time, his administration has ordered the US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) to start supporting coal power projects abroad and, seemingly with some success, is putting pressure on the World Bank to fund more fossil fuels.

Climate campaigners said these changes would foster dependence on coal, oil and gas in developing countries, worsening climate change and holding back economic development.

At energy security talks, US pushes gas and derides renewables

US cuts to South Africa’s JETP

Since 2021, a group of wealthy countries including the US have teamed up with the coal-reliant emerging economies of South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam on Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) plans to swap coal for clean energy in a way that is fair to workers and communities.

But Trump’s administration has pulled out of these deals. In March, the rest of the rich nations involved issued a statement saying the US’s withdrawal from the South African partnership was “regrettable”.

It meant the US would no longer provide $56 million in grants, and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) would not provide $1 billion in loans on commercial terms or equity investment to South African projects. Even projects already being implemented were cancelled, according to a South African foreign ministry spokesperson.

Coal-reliant South African provinces falling behind on just transition

Projects funded by other countries in the coal-reliant province of Mpumalanga include developing green hydrogen, energy-efficient homes, better electricity transmission and mapping areas suitable for wind turbines.Coal-reliant South African provinces falling behind on just transition

US contributions represented just under 10% of the total grants provided and a similar share of the total pledges. The other countries said they remain “fully committed” to the programme and “some partners are exploring possibilities for supporting work previously being carried out by the US”.

CIF coal transition programme on hold

As well as ending direct support, the US is also throwing a spanner in the works of $500 million due to be provided by the CIF, which works through multilateral development banks, and its Accelerating Coal Transition (ACT) programme for South Africa.

In 2022, South Africa asked the CIF for $450 million in loans and $50 million in grants under this programme to repurpose three aging coal-fired power plants in Mpumalanga, replace the electricity they generated with renewables, fund community projects in the province and make its buildings more energy-efficient.

The plan – approved that year by governments on the CIF committee that oversees this programme, including the US – was for this money to unlock around $2.1 billion more, mainly from development banks and the private sector.

But in July 2024, following elections and a change of environment minister in Pretoria, South Africa tried to change the investment plan to reflect state-owned utility Eskom’s decision to keep the three coal plants running – albeit below their full capacity – until 2030.

With the nation having suffered frequent planned blackouts due to a shortage of electricity supply, the government cited “energy security concerns” for the proposed change. Altering the plan meant it had to seek approval from this committee – the Clean Technology Fund’s Trust Fund – again.

By the time of the committee meeting in February 2025, with Trump now in the White House, the plan had still not been signed off by governments. The co-chair’s meeting summary shows that South Africa urged governments to give it the greenlight.

But in early March, the US prevented those funds from being approved, according to a Bloomberg news report. Two sources with knowledge of the discussions also told Climate Home that the US was holding back funding.

While the US under Trump has become hostile to phasing out fossil fuels in general, it has a particularly bad relationship with South Africa’s government, cancelling all “aid and assistance” in February due to Pretoria’s criticism of US ally Israel and US allegations of discrimination against South Africa’s white minority.

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The CIF committee next meets on June 11 in Washington, where the updated South African energy investment plan is due to be discussed, according to Bloomberg. A CIF spokesperson told Climate Home the agenda is “currently being finalised” and that deliberations related to the South African investment plan are “ongoing and not public”.

“A delay in funding means a delay in decarbonising the South African power sector,” said Tracy Ledger, head of just transition at the Johannesburg-based Public Affairs Research Institute.

Trump budget cuts to harm development

In the proposed US budget for 2026 – which has to be negotiated with Congress – the White House has proposed cutting $275 million of spending allocated to the CIF and the Global Environment Facility together, as well as taking $555 million away from the AfDB’s fund for Africa’s least developed countries because it is “not currently aligned to Administration priorities”.

Samuel Maimbo, a World Bank vice president who is bidding to lead the AfDB, said US cuts to the African Development Fund would have a “huge impact on Africa’s development”.

Even as it seeks to take money away from clean energy, the Trump administration has said it is willing to spend more public money supporting fossil fuel projects abroad – and has pressured international lenders like the World Bank to do the same, with some success.

EXIM backs coal projects

On the day he was inaugurated, Trump issued an executive order announcing he would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and “revoked and rescinded immediately” former President Joe Biden’s international climate finance plan. He instructed the EXIM president at the time, Reta Jo Lewis, to report back in 30 days on how she had complied with this order.

On May 1, the board of directors of the bank – which provides loans and other support to US businesses to help them export their products – voted unanimously to reverse a ban on funding coal-fired power projects.

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According to Kate DeAngelis, deputy director of economic policy at Friends of the Earth US, who monitored the meeting online, the board’s acting chair James Cruse told those present that this move put EXIM in line with Trump’s executive order and that Cruse had supported it all along.

A bank spokesperson told Climate Home that the entire board agreed that these changes “put the Bank in alignment with charter and administration priorities”.

Asked whether, as DeAngelis claimed, the bank was quicker to heed Trump’s order to fund coal than Biden’s previous order to phase out support for fossil fuels, the spokesperson said that “as an independent agency, EXIM always works to align with the priorities of the current administration”, adding that it “is most wholly focused on ensuring [our] mission and charter mandates are upheld”.

Funding foreign coal makes the US an outlier internationally. In recent years, almost all major nations – including China – have promised to stop funding coal-fired power plants abroad, although some exceptions persist.

Oil Change International campaigner Laurie van der Burg said public funding was crucial for coal plant developers as these projects are now deemed too risky by private banks. She added that EXIM’s move was “concerning” but unlikely to reverse the global trend of coal finance dropping.

Push for World Bank to back gas

In April, meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the World Bank – which provides cheap loans and grants to developing countries – “must be tech neutral and prioritise affordability in energy investment”. “In most cases, this means investing in gas and other fossil fuel-based energy production,” he said.

Shortly before Bessent’s speech, World Bank President Ajay Banga told reporters he would seek approval from the bank’s board to enable more gas projects, which are currently only supported in limited circumstances. Customarily, the head of the World Bank is effectively chosen by the US president, with Bessent saying in April that Banga needed to earn the Trump administration’s trust.

Trump’s first 100 days: US walks away from global climate action

Fran Witt, who attended the bank’s spring meetings as part of her work with the NGO Recourse, told Climate Home that the bank should spend taxpayers’ money on playing “a leadership role in helping [energy] transition rather than fostering dependence on gas”.

She said that, while the World Bank top leadership will push hard for gas, it would be a “pretty thorny discussion”, with “more progressive executive directors probably trying to hold fire”.

Voting power is proportionate to the shares each government holds and, while the US has the most at 16%, other nations like Japan, China and European countries also have substantial sway.

If the bank does start backing gas infrastructure like pipelines and ports, Witt said she expects a lot of developing countries will be keen to access that funding – particularly in Asia where “there’s a massive dash for gas”.

The post Trump shifts US funds from shutting down foreign fossil fuels to expanding them appeared first on Climate Home News.

Trump shifts US funds from shutting down foreign fossil fuels to expanding them

Perrine Fournier is a forest and mining campaigner at forests and rights NGO Fern.

Our fossil fuel addiction must end for humanity to have a livable future.

An important element in stopping this dependency is switching from vehicles that spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to electric vehicles (EVs), which pollute far less. Yet the path to a low-carbon world is full of potential pitfalls. A major one is the impact that mining for the critical materials needed to power EVs has on forests and peoples’ lives.

A new study shows that it doesn’t have to be this way.

According to researchers from the French think-tank négaWatt and the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna), a combination of measures – including, crucially, using less mineral-reliant battery technologies – could avert the damage we’re already seeing unfold in the stampede to secure the materials required for EVs.

European v Chinese batteries

Battery technology plays a critical role in deforestation patterns – and the type of battery used in EVs significantly affects deforestation levels.

At present, the most common batteries used for EVs in Europe are NMC 811, which require substantial amounts of cobalt, copper and nickel – all linked to high deforestation.

In contrast, Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries do not contain cobalt and nickel. Instead, they rely on materials which do not sit under tropical forests, such as iron.

Until now, the European Union (EU) has invested heavily in NMC battery technologies, while Chinese producers have honed and mastered LFP battery technology.

The researchers modelled – for the first time – the potential deforestation from future EU demand for EVs through to 2050.

Under a business-as-usual scenario and if high-deforestation NMC 811 battery technologies dominate, the EU’s future demand for electric vehicles could cause the loss of 118,000 hectares of forest by 2050 — that’s the equivalent of 18 football fields disappearing every day for the next 25 years.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Explainer: How green are batteries for electric vehicles?

While the study evaluated direct deforestation caused by mining for iron, bauxite, copper, manganese, nickel and cobalt, it did not address the vast indirect deforestation mining causes: including clearing forests for surrounding settlements and for infrastructure for energy and transport. A 2022 peer-reviewed paper found that industrial mining causes indirect deforestation in two-thirds of tropical countries.

Ways to avert disaster

Fossil fuel interests and climate change deniers use reports of the dark underside of mining for critical materials to try to frustrate the transition from petroleum-powered transport to EVs.

For instance, Indonesia is the world’s biggest producer of nickel, which is defined as a ‘critical mineral’ because it’s an essential component of EV batteries. But the rapid growth in nickel mining to meet rising demand is ruining local peoples’ lives and causing rampant deforestation.

A similarly depressing tale can be told of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the world’s number one supplier of cobalt, a metal that is also key for EV battery production. The impact of cobalt mining in the central African nation is well-documented, including forced evictions and other human rights abuses, as well as environmental pollution.

These are not isolated examples.

Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone

But rather than heeding the powerful forces trying to roll back measures to protect the planet, we must find ways to mitigate the damage.

The study outlines a credible way to do so: modelling a pathway for the EU’s EV sector which would decrease its projected deforestation footprint by 82%.

As well as adopting different battery technology, the researchers detail how the negative impact on forests could be further reduced by establishing national “no-go zones” for mining, favouring countries with lower deforestation risks, and enforcing strict due diligence.

As societies, we also need to use fewer resources and rethink what we truly need. In concrete terms, the researchers show this means adopting policies that reduce metal demand by promoting public transport, shared mobility and smaller vehicles.

In combination, these measures – improved battery technology, better sourcing of critical materials and more public services like trains and buses – could have a profound impact in helping protect the world’s forests from the ravages of mining, and ensuring that cleaner transport doesn’t have to cost the Earth.

The post How to make electric vehicles that don’t trash forests through mining appeared first on Climate Home News.

How to make electric vehicles that don’t trash forests through mining