Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM)

1. Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) Assessing adaptation in New Member States: Central & Eastern Europe Eric Massey – IVM Prepared for the 3rd EIONET Adaptation meeting, Copenhagen, Jun/Jul 30- 01, 2009

2. Background How can adaptation measures be organized? • Stage 1: Creation of Adaptation Policy Framework • Stage 2: Application of framework to 29 countries • Stage 3: In depth study and survey of select Member States

3. Purpose of Stage 3: Shortcomings of previous work While stages 1&2 were informative there limitations… • Key limitations • Information came primarily from UNFCCC National Communications and reports – these are now old and perhaps do not reflect current activities… • The source material was only in English – Some countries have adaptation strategies (Hungary) however not in English…. • Focused on the number of policies and measures with cursory look at the content… • Did not take into account the institutional aspects of challenges of effecting adaptation.

4. Purpose of Stage 3: The Survey contd. Purpose of the survey in general was to gather information on 3 key dimensions of adaptation • Institutional setup of adaptation: Which actors/institutions were involved in adaptation planning and execution? • Policy arena of adaptation: What policies are in place and what are planned? • Procedure of adaptation: The constraints and enablers implementing actions. Survey asked a series of question and presented data from previous study we did to comment upon.

5. Country selection 8 New Member States were selected Slovenia Czech Republic Poland Slovakia Lithuania Latvia Hungary Estonia People from ministries, government agencies, universities and research institutes were interviewed.

6. Country selection reason 1. • Based upon the previous study these countries were in a nascent stage of adaptation(data from 2006 or older)

7. Country selection reasons contd. • In terms of their adaptation aims they were quite similar… • Because they are new Member States not much research has been conducted in context of EU… • PEER network had done extensive work on EU-15.

8. Overview of survey questions • Priority of adaptation and institutions that deal with it • Focus on policy development: mainstreaming??? • Institutional cooperation (levels and scales as well) • Knowledge generation on climate impacts, adaptation etc. • New policy development etc. • Constraints to effecting adaptation 8 8 8

9. Priorities & institutional Aspects: Results • Priorities, Institutions & Cooperation • All but one country states adaptation as “Priority of national government, but in initial phase” • Apart from Hungary, no country has yet an Adaptation strategy per se.. Majority are working on plans to be finalized “in the near future” or have a basket of documents. • Two countries have sectoral strategies focusing on agriculture & water. • Ministry of Environment takes the lead and in a minority there is inter-ministerial cooperation. There appears to be little input from others than Ministry of Agriculture. • All countries save for one put the focus of policy development as a “Combination of mainstreaming and new policy development” Other state mainstreaming is the main focus. • Cooperation with regional and local governments is limited in terms of adaptation, main focus on disaster risk management. As a subfield of climate policy adaptation in this area is still novel

10. Priorities & institutional Aspects: Discussion • The appearance of a “slow” policy response towards adaptation is 3-fold: • Concept of climate change is still largely mitigation focused… • Since Green Paper, governments have undergone transition & priorities have shifted… • Financial crisis has moved many issues to back burner. • Almost all countries are EU followers in this field. They welcome EU direction. Hence mainstreaming. The White Paper will provide new impetus for action. • Despite “adaptation to climate change” being a new field in terms of policy development and action, the concept of taking impact response measures sectorally is not (especially in water and agriculture)

11. Policy: Results For each country we presented policy data from previous study on their policy actions to see what has changed • When presented with the data on number and type of policy actions 5 countries said we captured an accurate picture, 3 countries said they had more or added much more (Latvia, Hungary, Czech Republic). • When asked if previous policy recommendations had been turned into measures, the majority responded “yes”, some have been converted. • When asked if new domains/sectors were added, primarily the 3 with new policies said yes. (e.g. national security, financial management, health) • There were no concrete responses that any more new policies were planned apart from an overall adaptation strategy and or perhaps some institutional restructuring. Landscape, water and agriculture still top the list of domains

12. Policy: Discussion Reason behind asking previous question: - Not just to see if they have changed and how, - But also the driving force (if any) behind policy movement or stagnation (in particular domains) • Knowledge lock-in: Intellectual and institutional • Limited research agendas and resources • Definition of what should be labelled “adaptation” • Cultural preference • EU policy • Political priorities

13. Apart from the previous list, we also specifically asked countries to discuss & rank their main constraints to effecting adaptation. Top 4 constraints Knowledge and research Financial Institutional capacity Lack of networks Procedure: Constraints and outlook • Despite constraints many countries are optimistic they can be addressed and are trying to address them… • Recognize that ministries of education can play a greater role in setting research agendas • Hope EU White paper will encourage their governments spend more for adaptation • Need for better inclusion in European framework research projects • Need for better communication between research institutes and ministries

14. Discussion One thing most countries lacked was a NAS… • Do all countries need a NAS? • Should the EU provide guidance on what a NAS should include? EU has proposed an Adaptation Framework, Phase1 has 4 pillars. • What or how can the actions under these pillars help address the constraints in Central & Eastern Europe? • Especially Pillar 1 (knowledge base) & 4 (international cooperation)?

15. Thank You Spasibo Gracias Dank U Grazie Merci Danke Tak www.ivm.vu.nl