Adaptation to the impacts of climate change evolves moderately positive in Catalonia

On 13th May, the general director of Environmental Quality, Mercè Rius, presented the review of the Global Indicator of Adaptation (GIA) to the impacts of Climate Change in Catalonia. This value updates, expands and improves the one published for the first time by the Catalan Office for Climate Change (OCCC) in November 2014, and which, for the first time, established an indicator to monitor the evolution of Catalonia's adaptive capacity to the impacts of climate change.

The updating, expansion and improvement of the GIA allows observing a moderately positive evolution of adaptation to the impacts of climate change in the last 10 years. Specifically, the indicator has grown by 8.74% over the period from 2005 to 2014, in line with the start and development of adaptation measures and actions in Catalonia. In addition, the GIA is now more robust thanks to the integration of 42 sectoral indicators, 13 more than in the 2014 work.

In recent years there have been four significant milestones in the public policy of adaptation in Catalonia: the publication of the Third Report on climate change in Catalonia; the monitoring and assessment document of the Catalan Strategy for Adaptating to Climate Change (ESCACC, Horizon 2013 to 2020), the Law on Climate Change, and the completion of the Life MEDACC project, Adapting the Mediterranean to Climate Change. These milestones have led to the expansion of knowledge in adaptation in Catalonia, the realization that the impacts of climate change are a reality, and the normative integration of adaptation into sectoral public policies. The OCCC considers that these elements, together with the advancement of the various adaptation instruments in the municipal and supramunicipal scope that have been developed by the county councils, the metropolitan area and the councils, have made it possible to proceed with the revision of the Global Indicator of Adaptation.