Multidimensional assessment of European agricultural sector adaptation to climate change

The agricultural sector and how it relates to climate change is today emerging as a central subject of debate and critique, because it is heavily impacted by, and at the same time, a primary contributor to, climate change. The intertwined, complex relationship between the sector and climate change is among the unprecedented challenges now facing the European Union (EU). The complexity of the relationship calls for the establishment of a sustainable, future climate-proof, adapted and resilient sector with strong adaptive capacity. This paper argues that over the past decades, strong emphasis has been placed on how to mitigate the negative effects of climate change across the sector, causing it to fall behind in terms of adaptation. Although adaptation is now part of the sector’s development agenda, sectoral adaptation performance across member states remains low. In order to justify an accelerated adaptation process across the sector, the paper develops a Relative Climate Change Adaption Index (RCCAI) for the sector based on Eurostat data. The analysis shows that there is no single member state across the EU whose agricultural sector can be considered as fully climate-adapted (resilient), and thus validates the hypothesis that adaption efforts must be stepped up across the sector. To ensure continued sectoral adaptive capacity improvement, the paper recommends coherent integration and accelerated implementation of adaptation practices and policies alongside the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the sake of both private and public interests.