(Op-ed) An inconvenient Mediterranean truth: Rising tides and sinking futures

Published in Annahar (LB), Youm7 (EG), Alrai (JO), and Renewable Matter (EU).

November 18, 2024, Baku, Azerbaijan. The word “Mediterranean” evokes images of idyllic sun-soaked beaches and waters of varying hues of blue and green. Stunning sunsets overlooking pine-laden hills speckled with whitewashed villages. Raucous laughter in seaside restaurants serving olive oil-infused foods, a staple of the Mediterranean Diet we all love. The sea is a source of immense pride for the 22 countries that border its shores, an inextricable part of their identity and heritage. But the latest scientific findings paint a sombre picture, reinforcing what perhaps many of us already intuited about climate change but so few of us seem to have fully reckoned with. How much more will it take us to come to grips with the fact that this Mediterranean image so dear to our hearts may not be around much longer?

The Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC), which the Union for the Mediterranean proudly helped create and has continued to support throughout the years, brought this reality to our attention in 2020 with their groundbreaking First Mediterranean Assessment Report (MAR1). In it, they informed us not only that average temperatures have already surpassed the Paris Agreement’s limit of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial times, but that the region is warming at a rate 20% faster than the global average; in other words, they told us loud and clear that the Mediterranean is one the world’s climate change hotspots. Four years later, this independent network of scientists is doing it again with their latest reports on the impact of climate change on coastal areas and on the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems Nexus, issuing a stark, unequivocal warning that can only be described as the Mediterranean’s very own inconvenient truth: “Countries’ efforts to adopt effective mitigation and adaptation measures are still insufficient to promote desirable and liveable futures.”

Insufficient to promote desirable and liveable futures. Take a moment to let that sink in. What does this actually mean? It means that the sea level is expected to rise by a metre by the end of the century, enough to salinize vast coastal plains and fertile river deltas such as the Nile, threatening the food security of millions. Rising temperatures, coupled with pollution and overexploitation of the sea’s natural resources, make for sicker ecosystems that fall prey to invasive species and lead to the mass mortality of native marine flora and fauna. It also means that because large bodies of water absorb excess heat, storms and therefore floods will become even more frequent and even more powerful. To take an awful, recent example that is still fresh on our minds, it means that the devastation we saw in Valencia will become an even more common occurrence in certain parts of the Mediterranean. And in a region where a third of the population already lives in close vicinity to the sea and depends on its nearby infrastructure and related economic activities, it means that more and more people in these increasingly densely populated areas will be exposed to coastal hazards lest we fail to do more.

I could go on and on, listing fact after worrying fact. And yet, there is no getting around it: although climate change may appear to be an abstract danger, an invisible entity hanging over us that is easy to ignore or forget, it is still very much an inescapable reality we will all be forced to contend with sooner or later. The wealth of knowledge we already have at our disposal, thanks in part to the invaluable work of MedECC, should be more than enough to jolt us all into action. We must all collectively push for comprehensive cross-border legal, policy and economic changes as these are the only way forward for us all. Solutions involving innovative technologies, such as renewable energies, as well as those that are ecosystem-based, like the restoration of the wetlands that protect us against erosion and flooding, should be promoted. Behavioural changes that make our consumption patterns less energy intensive, including the widespread readoption of the Mediterranean Diet and reducing food waste, are also both effective and necessary for our species’ long-term survival.

Failing to recognise the Mediterranean is a global climate change hotspot or pretending this very real existential threat does not exist helps no one. We know better than to succumb to despair or paralysis. The time to act is now; tomorrow, as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres commented recently, there may very well not be a “lifeboat to take us back to safety.”

Grammenos Mastrojeni
UfM Senior Deputy Secretary General for Energy and Climate Action