Good afternoon.

Today is Tuesday, 27th of October,

and we're here with Executive Vice President Ribera and Commissioner Hoekstra for today's college readout. Executive Vice President, the floor is yours. Thank you, thank you so much. And good morning everybody.

Yes, we have got a very interesting college meeting.

We have found that the European Citizens' Initiative entitled European Status of Disability and Harmonization of Medical Prescriptions Among the European Union falls outside the areas of competence of the Union and therefore does not fulfill the criteria to be registered.

And as the initiative calls for a European status of disability replacing national systems and for a harmonization of medical prescriptions and reimbursement,

the Commission does not have the power to submit a proposal for a legal acts.

The organizers have 2 months to revise their initiative if they wish.

We have, of course, talked about other topics that will be part of a conference later on.

OK, so may I start with, OK,

so one of the two main topics that we have been discussing this morning has been the adaptation and resilience package to the climate risk that the commissioner Hoekstra has tabled.

Let me start with a very strong statement that we need to remind ourselves. Climate change is not a hoax. Climate change is not only real. It is also a powerful killer. It kills people.

Think about between 30,000 and 50,000 premature deaths that have happened this summer in Europe. It is also Destroying wealth and infrastructures.

Let me quote the European Central Bank research that found that local output is on average 1.5% points lower two years after the summer heatwave.

3% points lower for years after the drought and 2.8% points lower for years after the flood.

Let me use the Alliance research data proving strong negative economic impact heat stress can have on labor productivity.

Or to what extent if each country's five hottest years of 2014 to 2024 were replayed over 2026-2030,

cumulative implied GDP losses could reach between 5 and 7% for the most exposed economies,

either France, Italy, Germany, or Spain.

Could be losing between $240 billion US dollars and $120 billion US dollars.

The impact is structural, with a steep decline of on average 8% in gross fixed capital formation.

It is disproportionately depressing tax revenues,

with many EU countries expecting to breach mastery criteria as a consequence of heat stress.

Because in fact, Europe cannot be competitive without being resilient.

Resilience is therefore not only an environmental objective, it is an enabling condition for long term competitiveness,

and in this context, Europe has world class observation,

natural and social science capabilities and digital infrastructures.

The challenge is to convert these assets systematically into timely, trusted and decision ready information.

This explains why we have come with this proposal today.

This shows to what extent we need to work differently when thinking about climate,

because the first and most effective measure to tackle climate change is to fight its root causes.

But even when cutting emissions, we know we have to face the impacts of climate change.

Some of these impacts are already unavoidable because they were set in motion by our past emissions.

And they are neither fair nor equally distributed.

But the good news, as I said, is that we are not starting from zero.

We have observation, research, modeling capacities, early warning systems, national adaptation plans,

funding, and the EU civil protection mechanism which coordinates our response.

Many mayors and authorities have already done a good job.

Mayors are the ones at the front line.

More than 200-400 European municipalities have mapped their climate risk, 9 in 10 identify extreme heat as a risk,

and more than 8 out of 10 identify heavy rain and drought as a major risk.

But having the tools does not mean being prepared.

The challenge is to act before climate change materializes as a harmful and unbearable impact in our economy, in our society.

It is our responsibility to work hard to avoid as much as possible the cost and suffering that these impacts entail.

We live in the wealthiest continent of the world.

In a European Union that is constitutionally committed to ensure high level of well-being to our citizens and still we can do much more to be prepared for climate impacts.

Some may say resilience is expensive,

but the right question is what is the real cost of being unprepared? And this summer's heat and rocks.

Is expected to cost around €180 billion 1% of our entire economy.

In real life, this means farmers watching their harvest fail.

Power plants switching off, not because the lack of fuel, but the lack of water,

workers fainting or even dying due to extreme heat if they work outside in the hottest hours of the day.

It is not like a storm that passes, it stays in our economy.

Less than €1 in 5 is insured, the rest falls on citizens, business, public budgets.

When we are not prepared, the most vulnerable pay first, older people,

farmers, families without insurance, because climate change is also regressive.

Prevention is not a cost but an investment.

Our industry needs predictable water, stable energy, reliable infrastructures, our farmers' soils that can withstand drought.

Our businesses needs to ensure themselves at an affordable price,

and capital goes where it feels safe and investments can take place.

If there is no resilience, investment becomes more expensive or it simply leaves.

Allow me to say a word on water resilience,

because water is very important all across Europe and we need to invest in resilience.

The EU water resilience strategy provides a framework for action, but this summer has shown that we must accelerate its implementation.

This is why, according to the announcement made by the president of the College,

we will come with the European Water Initiative next year.

We need to work on our resilience, and this is why we are presenting the European Climate Resilience Framework.

As an enabling tool to learn together and back each other to do better, to prepare better.

It helps public authorities to translate the knowledge and information already available into concrete measures, so to ensure prevention, preparedness and response, counting on a common approach, factoring in climate in our decisions,

ensuring that we can improve the preparedness to respond when there is an emergency,

tools to know the risk as the climate view and its navigator to translate the data at the local scale.

Tools to support local and regional action,

tools to empower the European business to innovate and prosper, tools to better protect people.

To ensure that we all work together in the same direction.

Thank you so much and I think that the details er come with Commissioner Hofstraat who has been leading the work.