First Scientific Report on Climate and Environmental Change in the Mediterranean

Policy Framework

The UfM follows the mandate of the 42 UfM Member States, which gather in the Ministerial Meetings to address strategic priorities in the region. In 2014, UfM Ministers in charge of environment and climate change gathered in Athens on the occasion of the first UfM Ministerial Meeting on Environment and Climate Change.

As a result, the network of Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC) was created in 2015 as an open and independent international scientific expert network acting as a mechanism for decision-makers and the general public on the basis of available scientific information and on-going research. The creation of this network is supported by key regional institutions such as UN Environment/MAP through the Regional Framework for Climate Change Adaptation in the Mediterranean, and the Union for the Mediterranean through its Expert Group on Climate Change (UfM CCEG). MedECC gathers more than 600 scientists from 35 countries. Its Secretariat is hosted by Plan Bleu in Marseille.

In December 2019 the preliminary results of MedECC’s assessment on the risks associated to climate and environmental changes in the Mediterranean were published. Taking stock of the conclusions, the UfM Ministers of Foreign Affairs acknowledged the urgent need to address the impact of climate change in the Mediterranean region and shift towards sustainable consumption and production patterns for a green and low emission economy.

“No single nation, no single community, in our region has enough resources to cope with the pace of climate change on its own. Undeniably, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, our common efforts in the next decade have to focus on facing this urgent issue that goes way beyond climate change and implies reconsidering our approach to the region’s limited resources”, UfM Secretary General Nasser Kamel underlined at the UfM Regional Forum on 10 October 2019, when main conclusions of the report were presented.

In October 2021, Ministers from the 42 Member countries of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) gathered in Cairo at the 2nd UfM Ministerial Conference on Environment and Climate Action to reiterate the urgency and discuss ways to steer the action towards a clean, competitive, resilient and inclusive Mediterranean for the health and well-being of all citizens in the region.

The Summary for Policymakers was recognised as “an important contribution of the scientific community to future climate and environmental actions in the Mediterranean region » in the declaration of the the 2nd UfM Ministerial Conference on Environment and Climate Action (4 October 2021, Cairo, Egypt) by the 42 UfM ministers, and was endorsed but the Contracting Parties during the 22nd meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention COP22 (December 2021, Antalya, Türkiye).

With the support of the UfM, the MedECC received on December 9, 2021 in Lisbon (Portugal) the North-South Prize 2020 of the Council of Europe for “its efforts to address climate change and biodiversity conservation in the Mediterranean and in particular by drafting the first-ever scientific assessment on climate and environmental changes impacts in the Mediterranean Basin”