With Europe facing increasingly intense floods and droughts, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and global conservation group the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are teaming up to accelerate climate adaptation in Europe by developing nature-based solutions (NbS) that will help to buffer societies and economies against the worsening impacts of the climate and biodiversity crises.

In a memorandum of understanding, both parties pledged to promote NbS across Europe to tackle the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

The four-year partnership, signed during the recent United Nations Convention on Biodiversity COP16 in Colombia, will focus on ecosystem restoration projects linked to sectors like agriculture, energy and urban resilience that will harness the power of nature to strengthen climate adaptation in Europe, the fastest-warming continent on Earth.

By investing in enhancing the health of ecosystems, the projects, the parties say, will also help to reverse nature loss in the continent. Species populations, the recent WWF Living Planet Report finds, have declined by 35% on average in Europe and Central Asia since 1970.

Under the agreement, the WWF will establish an “incubation facility” to develop a pipeline of NbS from origination until they are investment-ready, while the EIB will provide guidance on mobilizing public and private funding for them.

Nature-based solutions, the parties note, face significant obstacles, including a lack of awareness among investors and a need for consensus building among a wide range of local players.

“Europe’s adaptation to climate change lags far behind what is needed,” says EIB vice-president, Ambroise Fayolle. ”We want to support more NbS projects to restore and protect biodiversity and strengthen the climate resilience of our society. Partnerships with organizations like the WWF with a strong presence on the ground are a relevant way for us to help deliver tangible results on a large scale.”