Gaia Capital is an independent think tank examining how climate policy is made, funded and enforced across Europe. It gathers the world’s leading experts on sustainable climate management and adaptation technologies.
Our focus
We connect research, policy, and industry experience to identify and develop best practices for tackling climate change.
By learning from successful initiatives and practical implementation, we help organisations strengthen resilience and deliver lasting climate impact.
Summer 2026
By the third week of July 2026, France had recorded its worst wildfire season since modern record-keeping began. Spain had burned six times the area lost by the same date the previous year.
The decisions that shaped that outcome were taken months earlier, in budget allocations, staffing levels and land-management limits set before the season began. Our research concentrates on that earlier stage.
Research areas
A target agreed in Brussels can differ substantially from the target a member state eventually enforces. The difference often shows up in the interval between a directive’s transposition deadline and the date national legislation enters into force.
Read moreMuch of Europe’s water and heat infrastructure was designed for a calmer climate than the one we now have. In some regions, flood defences designed decades ago are rated for rainfall levels that recent summers have already exceeded.
Read moreInsurers are already pricing in a different climate than the one governments are legislating for. In several EU markets, private cover for flood risk is shrinking just as governments discuss public reinsurance schemes to fill the space it leaves.
Read moreDecarbonisation targets are set in Brussels. The hardest obstacles to meeting them sit at the national and sectoral level, in permitting timelines and grid connection queues that can take years to clear.
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Dialogue
Gaia Capital convenes small roundtables under conditions of confidentiality, bringing regulators, researchers, financiers and industry representatives from opposing sides of a question into direct discussion.
Projects
Our research and convening work has contributed to European initiatives including PIISA, Pathways2Resilience and AdaptationHubs. The projects differ in scope, but each was directed at producing evidence that decision-makers can act on.
Locations
Gaia Capital operates from Brussels, where EU climate policy is negotiated, and from Luxembourg, seat of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Investment Bank. Positions taken in Brussels are tested in Luxembourg, through litigation and through financing decisions.
Gaia