Enhancing the Resilience of the EU Social Contract against Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss
Year: 2026
Type: report
Abstract: This report examines how the European Union can enhance the capacity of its social contract to deliver security, prosperity, equity, and democratic participation when the biophysical foundations of that contract (e.g. climatic stability, ecosystem integrity, and resource predictability) are undergoing profound transformation. Building on the analysis of climate and biodiversity risks performed in Deliverable 7.1 of the Express2 project (“Disruptors of the EU Social Contract Resulting from Climate Change Impacts, Climate-Related Policies, and Biodiversity Loss”), this report pivots toward prescriptive strategies for eco-social contract renewal and welfarestate reconfiguration. The analysis employs a five-dimensional resilience framework encompassing preservation and security, legitimate authority, autonomy and freedom, justice and fair distribution, and stability and allegiance. Through the lens of an emerging Eco-Social Contract paradigm, the report identifies four core state functions essential for climate and biodiversity resilience: buffering (absorbing shocks through adaptive social protection), enabling (facilitating labour market transitions), facilitating (providing low-carbon collective goods), and consensus-building (generating democratic legitimacy). Key findings demonstrate that traditional welfare state mechanisms designed for idiosyncratic risks are structurally inadequate for managing covariant climate and biodiversity risks. The report proposes comprehensive adaptations across social protection systems, health infrastructure, housing policy, food and water security, labour markets, essential services, fiscal architecture, and democratic governance. Integration of ecosystem restoration and spatial planning into social contract–oriented policy frameworks emerges as essential, reframing the Nature Restoration Law and Biodiversity Strategy 2030 as macro-instruments for rebuilding ecological buffers that underpin social security. The report concludes with actionable recommendations for EU and national policymakers, emphasizing that resilience requires not marginal, compensatory adjustments but fundamental reconfiguration of the welfare state's protective, enabling, and redistributive functions, grounded in ecological realities and oriented toward intergenerational sustainability.
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Life on land, Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7165436161