Europe’s southerners want Brussels to save them from climate change

ATHENS — They make an odd couple: a Harvard-educated Greek conservative and a Spanish eco-socialist.

But Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Teresa Ribera are united by a concern which is driving a wedge between Europe’s climate-hit south and the less-affected north.

The Greek prime minister, and Spain’s deputy prime minister, who is the frontrunner to take the top green policy job in the next European Commission, have separately raised the alarm about the economic devastation climate change is causing to southern Europe. And both want Brussels to step up.

“I’ve been focusing a lot on this topic,” said Mitsotakis, speaking to POLITICO in his office in Athens last month. “I’m a big believer [in] the green transition. [But] it cannot be at the expense of those who actually suffer from the consequences of climate change today.” 

Preparations for the devastating effects of climate change are known under the catch-all term “climate adaptation.” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen committed to a European Climate Adaptation Plan in her program for a second term. That was presented to the European Parliament in July.

The Greek leader is a close confidant of von der Leyen and a powerful figure in her European People’s Party. He said the Commission president’s focus on adaptation was “extremely welcome.”

But, as with other big issues facing the continent, one sticking point is how much money will be spent on an issue primarily affecting half the bloc. While the north will also face increasingly deadly heat, floods, fires and the spread of communicable disease, the hammer is falling first and hardest in the south. 

With discussions at EU level eventually likely to involve demands for cash to help the most affected regions, it could test how much rich but tight-fisted northern Europeans really want to aid their neighbors.

“You want to invest as soon as possible because that reduces the cost, and that provides early access to benefits. This is why the financial discussion is important,” said Ribera, when asked if she envisaged a special EU fund to address the issue.

But that could test EU-wide solidarity. “How much [are we] confident and believe in Europe?” she asked.

Vast impacts

Underneath this cross-continental bonhomie, the physics of climate change are already prying open one of the European Union’s deepest fault lines, as the regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea are suffering disproportionately as the world heats up.  

A recent European Environment Agency report detailing the huge scale of destruction coming to Europe was “so shocking,” said Ribera, speaking to POLITICO in May. “I don’t understand why people have not been talking about that much more.”

Von der Leyen said in June she would develop a specific plan to help farmers cope with the changes in the weather that affect Europe’s food security. | Patricia de Melo/AFP via Getty Images

Mitsotakis has led Greece through recent climate horrors. The summer of 2023 was marked by fires that killed dozens and shut down major tourist destinations in peak season. That brutal season ended with floods that wiped out agricultural production in the foodbowl region of Thessaly.

“If I go talk to my farmers about climate-friendly agriculture, I first have to tell them that — if something happens like the storm which happened last year — I’m going to be here to support you,” he said.

Von der Leyen said in June she would develop a specific plan to help farmers cope with the changes in the weather that affect Europe’s food security. 

But the range of possible impacts is so vast and complex that the anticipated EU response could cover everything from making sure insurance companies don’t abandon homeowners in new flood zones to protecting the water supplies required to cool nuclear reactors. The EU may need to prompt cities to develop emergency heat wave response plans for schools and care homes for the elderly, while also managing the threat posed by rising seas.

Mitsotakis has been pushing hard since last summer for the EU to bolster its shared emergency response capabilities. The EU’s pooled firefighting resources, which flew in to aid Bulgaria and North Macedonia last month, are celebrated by von der Leyen as an exemplar of European solidarity — but the Greek prime minister and others argue these resources need to be expanded.

Beyond EU borders

But it’s not only about money, Ribera argued. European policymaking will need to be reset so that decisions take account of the increasingly stark impacts of climate change. How, she asked, can you set targets for forestry production and conservation without factoring in future predictions of drought and fire?

European policymaking will need to be reset so that decisions take account of the increasingly stark impacts of climate change. | Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP via Getty Images

Another southerner, Italy’s hard right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has also pushed climate preparations in international fora — although she has been less of an advocate domestically.

“Adaptation is … a priority for Italy,” she told a meeting at the UN climate talks in November last year, noting her country’s status as a climate change “hot spot.” 

At this year’s G7, Italy brokered a deal to create a hub to promote partnerships between rich and poorer countries to tackle the impacts of climate change. 

Under Meloni, Italy has shifted its climate finance focus toward Africa and the likelihood that more people from outside the EU’s borders will be displaced by the impact of extreme weather — bringing more migration to EU countries like Italy. Further commitments to build climate-resilient infrastructure were made under Italy’s Mattei Plan, an investment scheme unveiled in detail in January. 

But so far Italy has applied less urgency to tackling climate change at home and at the European level — despite living through consecutive droughts like those which hit the Po Valley in the north and which dried out lakes and watercourses in Sicily and Sardinia this summer.

“Climate adaptation is nowhere to be seen as a national priority but only and at best as humanitarian action to mitigate migration flows from Africa,” said Luca Bergamaschi, director of the Italian think tank ECCO.

Aitor Hernández-Morales contributed reporting.