We interview Diana Oancea, Project Officer at the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) to learn about her role in managing LIFE projects, what she highlights about Life eCOadapt50 and the key factors to drive climate change adaptation, as well as the importance of investing now.

Diana Oancea: “Adaptation takes time, but acting now will save us much greater costs and impacts in the future”

The CINEA Project Officer highlights the value of the LIFE eCOadapt50 project as an example of multilevel governance and co-creation with territories to advance climate change adaptation.

Diana Oancea, Project Officer at the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), is one of those responsible for monitoring and supervising LIFE climate adaptation projects at the European level. During the interview, which we conducted on November 7 during CINEA’s second monitoring visit to the project, she emphasizes the importance of the LIFE eCOadapt50 project addressing adaptation from the territory and combining the bottom-up approach —which gives voice and prominence to local communities— with the multilevel governance framework, which connects local, regional and national actors.

According to Oancea, one of the key elements to keep local actors motivated is clear and constant communication that explains why it is urgent to act and shows tangible progress, even if small. She also stresses the value of cooperation between municipalities, sectors and organizations to create a true sense of community around adaptation.

Although she views the growing commitment of local governments with optimism, she expresses concern about the insufficient pace of implementation in the face of the accelerating impacts of climate change. For this reason, she emphasizes that investing in adaptation today is essential: waiting will only make the impacts more severe and the costs much higher. Providing solid evidence and human stories that show the real impact on communities is, she says, key to conveying this urgency to policymakers.