The Mediterranean coastal zone is home to highly interconnected climate risks that impact ecosystems and societies due to a combination of hazards, including increasing temperatures, water scarcity, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events. Policies to manage coastal risks and adaptation strategies in the Mediterranean coastal zone are important to the whole region as a third of the Mediterranean’s population lives close to the sea and depends on infrastructure and economic activities in its immediate vicinity. Thus, region-specific scientific knowledge is essential for stakeholders, governments, and citizens to make informed climate and environmental decisions and policies.

The Special Report Climate and Environmental Coastal Risks in the Mediterranean provides a comprehensive assessment of the scientific, technical and socio-economic literature on environmental and climate change hazards in the Mediterranean Basin’s coastal zones.

The Mediterranean region is currently dealing with critical challenges including water scarcity, food and energy insecurity, and ecosystem degradation. These challenges are interconnected, as highlighted in the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) nexus approach. Climate change further exacerbates them, making it necessary to take a comprehensive and integrated approach to achieve sustainable development and resilience in the face of evolving environmental and socio-economic dynamics.

MedECC’s Special Report on the WEFE nexus represents a significant step in understanding the complex relationships between water, energy, food, and ecosystems in the Mediterranean. The report offers a comprehensive assessment of the available scientific knowledge on these issues, covering the drivers of change, their cascading impacts, and response options for addressing the region’s multiple climate and environmental challenges. It emphasises the need for cross-sectoral coordination, technological and social innovation, ecosystem-based solutions, and transformative governance to mitigate risks and maximise synergies across all WEFE components.

The findings in this report are the result of collaborative efforts by scientists, policymakers, and stakeholders across the Mediterranean. It builds on the First Mediterranean Assessment Report (MAR1) published in 2020 by MedECC and focuses on the interconnections and trade-offs between water, energy, food, and ecosystems. It provides decision-makers with data-driven insights as well as evaluations that are relevant to mitigating climate impacts and ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources.

Climate change has exacerbated existing environmental problems in the Mediterranean Basin that are caused by a combination factors including of changes in land use, increasing pollution or declining biodiversity. In domains such as water, ecosystems, food, health and security, current changes and future scenarios consistently point to significant and increasing risks during the coming decades.

Policies for the sustainable development of Mediterranean countries are urgently needed to mitigate these risks and consider adaptation options, but policy-makers often lack adequate information, particularly in southern Mediterranean societies where fewer systematic observations schemes and impact models are based.

As a result, the network of Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC) was created in 2015 as an open and independent regional scientific expert network with support from the UfM and the UN Environment. Since then, 190 scientists from 25 countries, all contributing on a voluntary basis and without financial compensation, have developed reports to facilitate more effective policy responses to climate change.

After preliminary conclusions published in 2019, the second phase of the assessment resulted in the publication of the complete Mediterranean Assessment Report on ‎Climate and Environmental ‎Changes (MAR1) and its Summary for ‎Policy-Makers. The main conclusions were presented during the 2^nd UfM Ministerial on Environment and climate actions, which took place in Cairo in 2021.

Among its main conclusions, the report shows that the Mediterranean basin is warming at a rate 20% faster than the global average, making the region one of the main climate change hotspots in the world. 250 million people there could be considered “water poor” within 20 years, and with current policies, temperatures could increase by 2.2ºC compared to pre-industrial levels by 2040. 

In March 2022, the UfM and MedECC published 5 infographics to present and highlight specific risks associated with climate and environmental change in the Mediterranean basin based on data from MAR1.

Press releases and op-eds

• November 2024 – MedECC and UfM: Mediterranean countries’ climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts still insufficient for liveable futures (EN/FR/AR)
• November 2024 – Op-ed: An inconvenient Mediterranean truth: Rising tides and sinking futures, by Grammenos Mastrojeni, UfM Senior Deputy Secretary General
• November 2020 – Op-ed: Landmark scientific report on Mediterranean climate is clear: urgent action is needed, by Nasser Kamel, UfM Secretary General

Summaries for press

• November 2024 – The press summaries of the special reports on coastal risks and the WEFE nexus (EN/FR/AR/ES/IT)
• November 2020 – The press summary of the Climate report (MAR1): key highlights (EN/FR/AR/ES)
• November 2020 – The infographic summary of the Climate report (MAR1) (EN/FR/AR/ES/IT/GR)
• November 2020 – Social Media Infographics [.zip] (EN/FR/AR)

Contact

If you need additional information, please contact UfM Press Officer Cristina Tomàs White: