Under the climate rubric of the EGD, the European Climate Law commits the EU to climate-neutrality by 2050 and sets an immediate target of at least 55% net reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. It aims to achieve this mainly by cutting emissions, investing in green technologies and protecting the natural environment. It acknowledges the IPBES warning on the worldwide erosion of biodiversity, with climate change as its third-most important driver, and reiterates the need to protect ecosystem integrity and biodiversity against climate change in the context of the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the objectives of the Paris Agreement, and to maximise prosperity within planetary boundaries, increase resilience and reduce vulnerability of society to climate change. Actions should follow the precautionary and ‘polluter pays’ principles established in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, as well as the ‘energy efficiency first’ principle of the Energy Union and the ‘do no harm’ principle of the European Green Deal. While stressing the essential role of carbon sinks in achieving climate neutrality, the climate law calls for ecosystem restoration to assist in maintaining and enhancing natural sinks, enhancing adaptation capacities and resilience and minimising climate impacts, while bringing considerable co-benefits for biodiversity. The increasing frequency and impact of heat-waves, floods, droughts, forest fires, and other extreme events, and sea-level rise, and melting glaciers, have already substantially impacted ecosystems, carbon sequestration and storage capacities of forest and agricultural land. Preparing early for such impacts is cost-effective, and the climate law emphasises nature-based solutions for collectively addressing climate change mitigation, adaptation and biodiversity protection. Maintaining, managing and enhancing natural sinks in the long term, while protecting and restoring biodiversity, is among the intermediate Union climate targets.

The European climate pact invites people, communities and organisations across the EU to participate in climate action and build a greener Europe. Developing green areas is among its current priority actions to build resilience in the face of climate and health threats. In cities green urban areas both absorb emissions and reduce excessive temperatures, while in rural areas they provide multiple benefits for biodiversity, agriculture and ecotourism. Addressing the EU-BDS 2030 target of three billion new trees by 2030, now enshrined in the nature restoration law, the climate pact supports local communities, organisations and individuals committed to tree-planting and caring initiatives while linking up with the new European Urban Greening Platform. To ensure that enough land area is returned to vegetation, the climate pact will provide information to local and regional authorities, solutions to restore, protect and enlarge green urban areas, and a forum for dialogue and cooperation between communities, landowners and local governments. Solutions will build on existing policies and initiatives, and draw on findings from research projects, such as nature-based solutions.

The new EU climate change adaptation strategy adopted in 2021 underscores the need for systemic action, including nature-based solutions. Whilst recognising the urgency to address increasingly frequent and severe extreme events such as heatwaves, forest fires, droughts, hurricanes and pest outbreaks, it stresses that slow onset events including biodiversity loss and land and ecosystem degradation are equally destructive over the long term. Given the systemic nature of adaptation policy, it seeks to take action in an integrated manner with other EGD initiatives such as the EU-BDS 2030, the new Forest Strategy to 2030, the Soil Strategy, and the Circular Economy and Zero Pollution Action Plans. It cites major shifts expected over this century in the EU's terrestrial ecosystems and vegetation types, including protected areas. Water cycle and temperature changes, and sea-level rise, will additionally impact ecosystems. The ocean is expected to reach unprecedented conditions with increased temperatures, further acidification, and oxygen decline. In this context, the strategy prioritises better understanding of the interdependencies between climate change, ecosystems, and the services they deliver. The impact assessment accompanying the adaptation strategy identifies insufficient knowledge to support decision-making as a key problem, pointing in particular to the complete absence of losses such as ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, from existing datasets. Among key drivers it identifies insufficient public and private sector adaptation investment partly due to the public good problem: the wider benefits of adaptation for society are not necessarily captured by private financial return on investments. In light of all this, the Adaptation Strategy calls for science-based, robust ecosystem restoration and management to minimise risks, improve resilience, and ensure the continued delivery of vital ecosystem services: food provision, air and water purification, flood protection, biodiversity, and climate mitigation. It advocates more long-term investment in nature-based solutions for climate resilience given their numerous environmental, social and economic co-benefits for adaptation, mitigation, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, and health.