Funding programme

LIFE is the EU’s funding programme dedicated to the environment and climate action.

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Call overview

This call aims to help to achieve the long-term vision of the new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change.

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Objective

Projects under this strand should help to achieve the long-term vision of the new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change that, in 2050, the EU will be a climate-resilient society which is fully adapted to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. Projects should help to reinforce adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability, in line with the Paris Agreement and the European Climate Law.

Climate change is having far-reaching effects ranging from unprecedented forest fires, heatwaves, droughts, floods, or other extreme events to slow-onset processes like desertification, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification or sea level rise.

Projects under this strand should help to:

• Ensure continuous progress in enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change, as required by Article 5 of the European Climate Law
• Achieve the long-term vision of the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change that, in 2050, the EU will be a climate-resilient society which is fully adapted to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

More specifically, projects under this call should support the strategy’s objective to:

• make adaptation smarter (improving knowledge, managing uncertainty, and informing adaptation actions by robust data and risk assessment tools that are available to all);
• make adaptation more systemic (incorporating climate resilience considerations in all relevant policy fields, because climate change has impacts at all levels of society and across all sectors of the economy);
• make adaptation faster (developing and rolling out adaptation solutions that allow us to adapt more quickly and comprehensively).

Furthermore, projects should take care to avoid maladaptation, i.e. adaptation actions or practices aimed at a group of people and that actually make them more vulnerable to climate change.

Further details in the call document, page 20.

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Scope

Areas of Intervention:

• Support to the implementation of climate adaptation policies and the revision of national, regional or local climate adaptation strategies and plans;
• Implementing state-of-the-art tools for climate risk assessments or selection of cost-effective adaptation measures for dealing with climate threats and solutions for adaptation;
• Development and implementation of nature-based solutions for different types of areas (rural, urban and coastal);
• Climate-proofing and resilience of infrastructure and buildings;
• Adaptation solutions for agriculture and forestry;
• Water management;
• Health;
• Preparedness for compound risks and cascading risks;
• Financial instruments, innovative solutions and public private collaboration on insurance and loss data.

Eligibility

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

− be legal entities (public or private bodies)

− be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:

• EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
• non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the LIFE Programme or
• countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries)

- the coordinator must be established in an eligible country.

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Duration

The typical duration of the project is 2 to 5 years. Maximum project duration: 10 years.

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Budget

The total indicative budget is EUR 28 500 000.

Maximum 60% funding rate.