Thank you very much Teresa, ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to all of you.

We have been calling the last summer the summer of truth and in my view, rightly so.

If you were to look at the statistics,

you would find that heat related illnesses claimed more than 35,000 lives in Europe alone.

We've lost roughly 700,000 hectares in terms of land,

and our economy has suffered tremendously as well.

Ships were unable to navigate the Rhine or the Danube, and the reports differ slightly,

but most experts assess that the cost of the whole summer was north of 100 billion.

Dramatic impacts, but in reality,

let's also see this for what it was yet another summer of truth.

If you were to look at the last four years, the EU has roughly lost 50 billion a year from climate extremes,

and that is if you then put it into a broader perspective,

much higher than for example in the 80s when the numbers were below 10 billion.

So a factor of 5 in just a few decades.

So yes, on the one hand, there is no alternative,

no alternative to continue to cut emissions more forcefully and to move full frontal into clean energy.

But at the same time we do have to acknowledge that the problem we're facing have morphed into something that is so large that just doing that alone unfortunately no longer is good enough.

This simply is, even though I would argue it's not normal, it is the new normal. We will see more of this.

And that second reason, the reason of resilience and of adaptation, is the reason we're here today. Last summer may have been.

One of the hottest or the hottest on record, but it will be in all likelihood the coolest for years to come.

And no matter what we do, this will likely get worse.

The good news is that we do have some agency.

The choices we make today can actually make those impacts less severe.

So more is needed at all levels local, regional, national, but of course also at a European level.

And that is why today we are coming with this specific package to help protect,

plan, and prepare for a warmer Europe.

Gentlemen, today's announcement makes change much more systemic,

factoring climate risks from the start rather than just dealing with the consequences afterwards.

It will ensure that we as a union work together more strongly and also more consistently.

And I will give member states but also regional authorities, local authorities,

the space to choose the measures best suited to their individual circumstances.

So let's make no mistake, this comes of course on the back of,

I would argue, already substantial investments in adaptation in the European Union today.

If you were to look at the numbers, you would find that roughly €30 billion is earmarked already for climate resilience financing in the current MFF.

And it also aligns with our proposal, the Commission's proposal for the next MFF,

where adaptation spending will count towards the overall 35% number for climate and environment spending.

But given how large the problem is, we are truly thankful for the great collaboration with the EIB and Nadia Calviño in particular,

and their announcement of just last week that the EIB will invest another $30 billion into climate adaptation from now until 2030,

and that is twice the amount committed in the first half of this decade, so truly very helpful.

So, what is it exactly we're doing and, and I'm building here on what Theresa just shared with you.

First, the reference global warming trajectory or in simple terms, having the same understanding because that is what it is,

on how much the EU is likely to warm will become the starting point when making decisions about policies,

assets, or investments.

And as it may sound, that is not the case today, or at least not all of the time,

and we simply need to be better at building climate risks into our planning and into our decision making based on what science tells us that is going to happen.

Most of our efforts are focused on reaching 1.5.

However, as science says that we're heading potentially towards a 3 degrees warming globally by the end of this century.

So we do need to think about this when we do plan our towns, when we build infrastructure,

when we build bridges, and how we manage our lands, our water, and of course our resources.

Just to give you one example, a country like Spain is historically used to droughts and heat waves, but in the last years we've also seen that heavy rainstorms have overwhelmed the sewer network,

forcing mixtures of rainwater, untreated sewage, and urban pollutants into rivers and the sea,

degrading water quality and sometimes closing beaches.

The good news is that cities including Barcelona, Madrid,

and Alicante have been responding with rainwater retention reservoirs and sustainable urban drainage systems such as permeable paving and floodable green spaces to actually reduce runoffs and retain water.

So a very good example, but now, of course,

we have a proposal today that will make sure that we identify these risks like those more systemically in the EU and plan measures in order to address them.

Second element,

the new framework will ask for a clear picture of who is in charge of managing the climate risk.

Say for example you're living in a town somewhere in Europe and your neighborhood has been flooded or has been dealing with wildfires,

and the last thing I think we would all agree you would want to see is have politicians fighting about who was the one who should have been taking responsibility.

Our package proposes that governments are clear and transparent about who is in charge of managing climate risks in key policy areas,

so we're not going to prescribe who needs to do it, but we do ask that the identification is being done.

Third, we're rolling out a range of concrete measures that will help local but also regional governments,

businesses, and every one of us to cope with climate change and its impacts.

We will be identifying, you've heard this in the OTU as well, 100 of the most vulnerable European territories.

We're setting up a climate insurance alliance to make sure we do more to close the big insurance gap and increase this insurance uptake,

incentivize risk prevention, and make sure there's enough capacity to cover the risks.

Remember, and the number is intimidating, I have to admit that only 25% of catastrophe losses are covered by private insurance today,

and that means that too often national budgets become the insurer of last resort.

We're also rolling out a European heat wave plan to help our cities, help our regions,

help everyone to cope in the short term with another sizzling with more sizzling summer temperatures. Fourth and final point.

We have also developed digital tools such as the so-called Climate Viewer.

And this allows everyone to literally zoom in and explore risks by geographical location.

And based on climate information from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, what this tool will do is get more and more precise,

and it will give you information on vulnerabilities, on assets, and on modeling.

In our view, this is an incredibly useful tool for public authorities.

Think about a local administrator who wants to assess what needs to be done, but also for businesses.

Just imagine you want to make the most accurate assessment of what might happen and how to best prepare for this.

You can actually then use this fuel for that, and when you are a small business producing, for example, asphalt for road construction.

What they can do is to win more for businesses in Europe and make sure that we develop the materials which can withstand higher temperatures.

They will be able to use the viewer to understand expected maximum temperatures in their region of operations in the medium but also in the long term.

And of course they can look at regions with similar patterns for best practices.

So ladies and gentlemen, Today's EU framework for climate resilience is a world's first.

It is also the first time the European Union is moving so concretely and coming up with legislation.

At the same time, I wouldn't say that we're nearly done. Much of this is going to be.

Work in progress even though it is systemic and significant,

and many of these elements will only be delivered in 2027.

Even after all of this package is being implemented, it is not the end of the story.

The EU and Member States simply have more ahead of them and therefore will continue to do more.

That said, we do have a crystal clear case, as Theresa is saying, a crystal clear economic case for doing so.

It is way better to make the upfront investment rather than to deal with the misery and the horrors of the heat waves and the floods afterwards.

So invest the money now, save more for the future. And protect our citizens. Thank you.