ECC 6

Systems Transitions: Land, Ocean and Ecosystems

System Transition - IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identifies several key system transitions. These include:

  • Land, Ocean, and Ecosystems Transition

  • Urban, Rural, and Infrastructure Transition

  • Energy System Transition

  • Cross-Sectoral System Transition

Attribution of Climate Change Impacts

Key Elements

  • Greenhouse Gases: Influence physical changes in the environment.

  • Physical Changes: Impact ecosystems and human systems.

  • Ecosystems: Affect human systems and ecosystem services.

Ocean Impacts

Observed changes and impacts in ocean regions, as assessed in the SROCC (Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate), include:

  • Physical Changes:

    • Temperature increase

    • Oxygen decrease

    • Ocean pHpH decrease (increasing acidification)

    • Sea ice extent decrease

    • Sea level rise

    • Changes in the upper water column

  • Ecosystems:

    • Coral reefs (both warm-water and cold-water)

    • Coastal wetlands (salt marshes, mangroves, seagrasses)

    • Kelp forests

    • Rocky shores

    • Deep sea ecosystems

    • Sea ice-associated ecosystems

  • Human Systems and Ecosystem Services:

    • Fisheries

    • Tourism

    • Habitat services (biodiversity, primary production)

    • Transportation/shipping

    • Cultural services

    • Coastal carbon sequestration

Regional Impacts

Observed impacts vary across regions:

  • Arctic: Specific impacts on the Arctic region.

  • Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS): Impacts on Benguela, Canary, California, and Humboldt Currents.

  • North Atlantic, North Pacific, South Atlantic, South Pacific, Tropical Indian Ocean: Impacts specific to these regions.

  • Temperate, Tropical, and Southern Oceans: Regional changes and impacts.

Legend

The figure uses a color-coded legend:

  • Physical Changes: Yellow/green indicates an increase/decrease, respectively.

  • Impacts on Ecosystems, Human Systems, and Ecosystem Services: Blue/red depicts positive (beneficial) or negative (adverse) impacts, respectively.

  • Mixed Changes: 'Increase and decrease' or 'positive and negative' indicate mixed findings within the region.

  • No Assessment: Indicates that the region was not assessed, assessment was not applicable, or evidence was insufficient.

Confidence Levels

Confidence levels for the attribution of observed changes are indicated as:

  • High

  • Medium

  • Low

The confidence level refers to the confidence in attributing observed changes to changes in greenhouse gas forcing for physical changes and to climate change for ecosystem, human systems, and ecosystem services.

Definitions

  • Physical Changes in the Ocean:

    • Temperature change is measured in the 0-700 m layer, except for the Southern Ocean (0-2000 m) and Arctic Ocean (upper mixed layer).

    • Oxygen is measured in the 0-1200 m layer or oxygen minimum layer.

    • Ocean pHpH is measured as surface pHpH.

  • Ecosystems in the Ocean:

    • Coral includes warm-water and cold-water corals.

    • 'Upper water column' refers to the epipelagic zone, except in Polar Regions, where impacts on pelagic organisms deeper than 200 m are included.

    • Coastal wetlands include salt marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses.

    • Kelp forests are habitats of macroalgae.

    • Rocky shores are coastal habitats dominated by immobile calcified organisms.

    • Deep sea is seafloor ecosystems 3000-6000 m deep.

    • Sea-ice associated includes ecosystems in, on, and below sea ice.

    • Habitat services refer to supporting structures and services (e.g., habitat, biodiversity, primary production).

    • Coastal Carbon Sequestration refers to carbon uptake and storage by coastal blue carbon ecosystems.

  • Ecosystems on Land:

    • Tundra includes tundra and alpine meadows, and terrestrial Antarctic ecosystems.

  • Human Systems:

    • Migration refers to an increase or decrease in net migration.

    • Impacts on tourism refer to the operating conditions for the tourism sector.

    • Cultural services include cultural identity, sense of home, and spiritual, intrinsic, and aesthetic values and glacier archaeology.

Example EU Tourism Policy

The transition pathway is a long-term process. The European Commission is facilitating this through various means:

  • Online targeted stakeholder consultation.

  • Workshops with stakeholders.

  • Policy reports.

  • Meetings with member state experts and council.

  • Meetings with the European Parliament (EP) and European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).

  • Consultations with EC policy services and industrial forum.

Timeline and Activities

  • June 2022: Online targeted stakeholder survey started.

  • Until 15 Sept 2021: Stakeholder consultation.

  • Feb 2022: Policy report.

  • 5 Oct - 15 Dec 2021: Meetings with MS experts and Council.

  • 8 Feb 2021: Call for commitments opened.

  • Sep 2022: Expert groups events started.

  • Yearly from 2023 onwards: Evaluation of progress.

Key Elements

  • Co-creation: Transition pathway for tourism.

  • Online Platform: Sharing of best practices.

Context for the Transition Pathway for Tourism

  • The 2021 Industrial Strategy update calls for accelerating green and digital transitions and increasing the resilience of all 14 industrial ecosystems.

  • The tourism ecosystem was addressed first due to its high economic value, challenges in meeting environmental and digital goals, and impact from the COVID-19 crisis.

  • Leveraging recovery from COVID-19 for the twin transition and improving resilience.

  • Links with several policy initiatives like the European Green Deal, Fit for 55, Circular Economy Action Plan, EU Data Strategy, Europe's Digital Decade, and Digital Compass.

  • Links with other industrial ecosystems: agri-food, construction, cultural and creative industries, digital industries, mobility and transport.

  • Creating a comprehensive picture of the transition of the tourism ecosystem.

Key Element: Stakeholder Pledges

  • Stakeholders identified key areas of the transition pathway and continue shaping its implementation.

  • DG GROW (Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs) opened a continuously open online call for stakeholders to submit pledges to support the transition pathway, with published results 2-3 times a year.

  • Engaging stakeholders through pledges allows them the flexibility to define their actions and targets.

  • Pledges show examples of leadership and facilitate best practice sharing.

  • Collecting and publishing pledges supports optimising synergies, building links, targeting support activities, and recognising needs for further support.

  • Pledges build evidence on actions and progress, and DG GROW follows and supports them with stakeholder working groups.

70 Actions Grouped Under Key Topic Areas

The key topic areas include:

  • Digital Transition:

    • Data-driven tourism services

    • Clear online information offer

    • R&I for digital tools and services

    • Interoperable data space for tourism

    • Digitalisation of SMEs and destinations

    • Collaborative and smart destination governance

  • Green Transition:

    • Circular tourism services

    • Sustainable mobility methods for tourism

    • Experimenting environmental footprint

    • Companies reducing environmental impacts

    • R&I projects and pilots on sustainable tourism

  • Policy & Governance Stakeholder Support:

    • Comprehensive tourism strategies

    • Expanding tourism indicators

    • Multimodal travelling

    • Short-term rentals

    • Facilitating travelling (cross-border, coordinated rules sharing)

  • Skills & Resilience:

    • Networking, best practice sharing

    • Awareness raising (skills needs, transition benefits)

    • One-stop-shop to resources (skills, funding)

    • Skills and education development

    • Fair and good quality jobs

    • Accessible tourism services

    • Diversification of tourism services, including resident perspective

382 Published Pledges on All Topic Areas

The distribution of pledges across topic areas is as follows:

  • Digital Transition: 68 (18%)

  • Green Transition: 73 (19%)

  • Skills and Resilience: 98 (26%)

  • Policy and Governance: 89 (23%)

  • Stakeholder Support: 49 (13%)

  • Other: 5 (1%)

Types of Organisations Presenting Pledges

  • Business Association

  • SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprise, less than 250 employees)

  • Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)

  • Regional Administration

  • National Administration

  • Academic / Research Institution

  • Destination Management/Marketing Organisation

  • Local Administration

  • Company with 250 or more employees

  • Network of Organisations

  • Consumer/Tourist Organisation

  • International Organisation

  • Trade Union

Submissions Come From 23 MS + 9 Other Countries

The distribution of submissions by country includes:

  • Spain

  • Italy

  • Belgium

  • Germany

  • France

  • Greece

  • Other Country

  • Romania

  • Portugal

  • Sweden

  • Netherlands

  • Austria

  • Cyprus

  • Croatia

  • Czechia

  • Slovenia

  • Bulgaria

  • Estonia

  • Ireland

  • Lithuania

  • Malta

  • Finland

  • Latvia

  • Slovakia

Example Pledges - Regional Administration

  • Extremadura is committed to improving the skills of people seeking employment in the tourism and hospitality sector through a Professional Training Plan, offering places for proving knowledge in Tourism Marketing (480), Sustainability (510), Quality and Professionalization (1,605), Innovation Domain (210), and Technology Domain (400) by 2023.

  • Pays de la Loire aims to improve transport and soft mobility for tourists, to offer travellers new experiences and to better distribute tourist flows. By 2025, Pays de la Loire will be the top French destination for cycle tourism. By 2030, 100% of our destinations are accessible by green means of transport (soft or collective mobility) and 0% are exclusively accessible by individual car.

Example Pledge - Local Administration

The City of Zagreb aims to set up a uniform system for monitoring the sustainable development of tourism by 2023, including a digital platform with yearly reports to ensure timely detection and minimisation of possible negative impacts caused by tourist operations.

Example Pledge - DMO (Destination Management Organization)

Bordeaux Metropole has developed a roadmap up to 2026 to empower the community to decide the future of tourism. Key figures about tourism are regularly updated with full transparency on agora-tourism-bordeaux.com. The target is to maintain a tourist activity support rate among residents equal or superior to the European medium rate during resident sentiment index surveys (each two years, the next one will be in 2023).

Funding Sources for Transition

  • Tourism can be supported under 15 EU funding programmes.

  • Technical Support Instrument by DG REFORM provided support for 7 MS in 2022.

  • National support under National Recovery and Resilience Plans for 15 MS with specific action on tourism.

  • Tourism actors can apply for funding through different means, including consortia applying for EU-level grants, funds managed at national and regional levels, and direct support for SMEs through SMP-funded actions.

Currently Open EU Funding Opportunities

There are also several other support mechanisms for SMEs which give technical assistance, training, and support in finding funding options: European Enterprise Network, European Cluster Collaboration platform, Digital Innovation Hubs, EIC accelerator, Tourism Business Portal.

EU Funds

The document lists EU Funds for Policy and Governance and Green Digital Resilience Skills transition like:

  • Creative Europe Programme

  • Digital Europe Programme

  • Erasmus+

  • European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development

  • European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for Displaced Workers (EGF)

  • European Maritime, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF)

  • European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Cohesion Fund

  • European Social Fund Plus (ESF+)

  • Horizon Europe

  • InvestEU

  • Just Transition Fund (JTF)

  • LIFE Programme

  • REACT-EU

  • Recovery and Resilience Facility

  • Single Market Programme (SMP)

  • Support by European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

  • Support by the European Investment Bank (EIB)