Europe is warming faster than any other continent. Since the 1980s, the pace of warming has been about twice the global rate, and the consequences are most pronounced where people are concentrated: in cities.
What used to be described as “extreme” weather is increasingly the new normal, testing the systems that keep urban life running: housing, transport, healthcare, power, water, and emergency services. In a recent Eurocities Pulse survey on climate resilience, cities rank heat waves/high temperatures as the number one climate threat, with flooding close behind and wind/storms ranked priority number three.
Researchers from the Grantham Institute, examining 854 European cities, estimate that in 2025, climate change–intensified summer heat contributed to thousands of additional deaths, an alarming reminder that heat is not just uncomfortable but lethal.
And the outlook is not reassuring. Projections suggest European temperatures will continue rising faster than the global average, potentially pushing summers into territory that cities (and bodies) will struggle to endure. The recently published European State of the Climate, shares that in 2025, almost the entire continent of Europe (at least 95%) saw above-average annual temperatures and also experienced Europe’s second most severe heatwave on record.
Heat is only part of the story. Water, too, is becoming a threat from both ends: too much, too little, and often at the wrong time. According to the European Environment Agency, around one in eight Europeans live in areas potentially prone to river flooding. In southern Europe, roughly 30% of people face permanent water stress.
Cities are particularly exposed because dense development and sealed surfaces stop rainwater from soaking into the ground. When heavy rain hits, it runs off fast into basements, tunnels, and overloaded rivers.
What is to be feared, it’s to be addressed.
Climate-related extremes since 1980 are estimated to have caused hundreds of billions of euros in losses across the EU, with a striking share occurring in just the last few years. Floods account for the largest portion of these losses, followed by storms and heatwaves, and the trend is moving in the wrong direction.
Many cities have already assessed the hazards they face and mapped those people who are most vulnerable to them, but maintaining regularly updated risk and vulnerability assessments requires time and expertise, as does developing effective policies to address the findings. It is not surprising then that only 56% of cities conduct regular climate risk assessments (every 2-3 years) and only 44% report having or developing measures to address heat exposure in schools.
The latest CIDOB Monograph, Urban Climate Resilience in Europe, – based on the findings of the Eurocities Pulse survey on climate resilience – provides further expert analysis of the status, challenges and needs of cities on urban climate. The publication also suggests measures to be included in the upcoming EU Climate Resilience Framework.
Because even where plans exist, the money pathway does not: 85% of cities have adaptation plans, yet only 6% have a dedicated finance strategy, and a third have none (other cities are either working on a dedicated financing strategy or report that “financing considerations” are included within their adaptation strategy). Nearly half of cities (46%) still lack any method to cost, compare or prioritise adaptation measures, one reason they struggle to maintain a steady pipeline of finance‑ready projects.
Looking ahead, droughts, heatwaves, and floods could cost European cities and regions €126 billion by 2029. “As home to over 75% of the EU’s population, European cities experience the increasing impacts of climate change in their everyday life,” says Ricardo Martinez, Senior Research Fellow in Global Cities at CIDOB. “As climate risks are highly context specific, cities need a comprehensive resilience agenda that stems from a close coordination between local, national, and EU levels.”
As climate risks are highly context specific, cities need a comprehensive resilience agenda that stems from a close coordination between local, national, and EU levels.
Not only are cities home to more than three-quarters of the EU’s population, but they also generate over half of the Union’s GDP. Therefore, the stakes are continent-wide.
Many mayors already treat climate action as their top priority, rolling out heat plans, redesigning public spaces, and investing in parks, trees, and other nature-based solutions. Among nature-based options, cities most often prioritise tree planting and urban green spaces. However, they face persistent obstacles, including thin budgets, short-term funding, patchy technical capacity, and fragmented responsibilities across different levels of government.
“Our data shows that while many cities are advancing adaptation planning, they continue to face significant gaps in technical capacity, regulatory clarity, and (most critically) predictable, long-term financing”, notes André Sobczak, Secretary General of Eurocities.
These capacity constraints show up even in basic risk intelligence and project preparation. Cities report barriers to using climate data that are overwhelmingly “capacity-shaped”: limited financial resources (45 cities), limited human resources (41 cities), and inadequate infrastructure (39 cities), alongside lack of technical capacity (26 cities) and limited coordination (28 cities).
The Eurocities Pulse survey underscores why: cities mostly depend on traditional public sources, such as municipal revenues (47 cities), EU funding (46 cities) and national/federal transfers (40 cities). Fewer cite tools that can unlock larger-scale investment, such as municipal borrowing (12 cities) or direct private sector funding (14 cities).
“A strong EU framework can help close these gaps by providing clearer governance structures that support collaboration across governance levels, better access to localised risk data, and funding instruments that match the scale and urgency of urban climate risks,” Sobczak adds.
Europe’s next test is whether it can turn this awareness into sustained, coordinated action before today’s “once-in-a-generation” events become routine.
A framework that matches the reality on the ground
The upcoming European Climate Risk and Resilience Integrated Management Framework would be the first proposed EU-wide, legally binding framework focused on climate adaptation. Done well, it should embed resilience-by-design across EU legislation, harmonise risk assessments, address climate-related health impacts, and redirect investment toward preparedness. The CIDOB Monograph on Urban Climate Resilience in Europe provides key data and expert insights into how this legislation can support cities and member states to embed resilience across sectors and coordinate to climate-proof future investments.
Three essentials of the EU Climate Resilience Framework:
First, the Framework should provide clearer responsibility for climate risks and risk ownership, and it must embed capacity building as a key pillar of resilience. In practice, climate adaptation responsibilities are spread across actors and sectors: housing, water, health, land use, transport, and emergency services.
Our data show that while many cities are advancing adaptation planning, they continue to face significant gaps in technical capacity, regulatory clarity, and (most critically) predictable, long-term financing.
Too often, cities are expected to manage risks that lie beyond their legal authority, such as privately owned assets, land owned by other actors, upstream water management, or critical infrastructure controlled at other levels of governance.
Secondly, the Framework must support a shift away from short-term, competitive project-based funding toward long-term, predictable investments that match the timescales of climate risk. Cities repeatedly report that adaptation action follows “windows of opportunity” from national and EU programmes rather than stable multi-year support. This undermines long-term planning, prevents the building of steady project pipelines, and makes it harder to attract investors.
To change this, EU-level financing should become more stable, earmarked and multi-annual, supporting not only construction, but maintenance and long-term performance, especially for nature-based solutions.
Third, and crucially, the European Commission needs to establish a mandatory way of working between cities and national governments to ensure coherent multi-level planning and investment. Consultation is not coordination.
This matters because resilience is territorial and context-specific: cities are best placed to understand local risks, but national authorities shape key regulatory and fiscal conditions and control major investment levers.
If the EU Climate Resilience Framework delivers on these three pillars, it can move Europe from fragmented measures to a coherent resilience agenda.
The stakes are not abstract. They are measured in lives during heatwaves, in homes flooded after sudden storms, in local economies disrupted by droughts, and in the credibility of Europe’s promise to protect its people as the climate shifts. Cities are ready to act. The Framework must make sure they can.
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The CIDOB Monograph Urban Climate Resilience in Europe is a collaboration between Eurocities and CIDOB to provide expert analysis of the status, challenges and needs of cities on climate resilience. The Monograph builds on data from the Eurocities Pulse 2025, which was co-designed by Eurocities and CIDOB experts and received responses from 54 cities across 17 countries.
The CIDOB Monograph will be presented at the event ‘Europe’s Territorial Resilience and Risk Management at a turning point’ that will take place at the Committee of the Regions on 6 May.
The event will showcase the needs of cities and regions to boost resilience to climate change, share concrete adaptation solutions, and explore the policy levers that can support their uptake. Local, regional and European experts and policy makers will attend to discuss how EU policies can best support adaptation in practice.
You can register for the event here.
