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Athens, Greece – Climate experts say last month Wildfire The 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of Greek forests that have been razed to the ground are only a small part of the environmental and economic damage the country will face as a result of global warming this century.
After the fire Heat wave, Repeating the pattern seen in the other two national fires in 2007 and 1987; geophysicist Christos Zerefors told Al Jazeera that this phenomenon is getting worse.
“This heat wave is the longest heat wave in our country’s history,” he said. “In 1987, it lasted five days. In 2007 it was six days. Now it is 11 days. It has been increasing.”
The heat wave basically ignited the thick pine grass on the forest floor in the suburbs, which was blown down the mountain by a strong storm the previous winter. Zerefos said that the pine grass was full of highly flammable pine resin. “The heat wave and the resin together form a bomb, [was] ready to go. “
Zerefos leads a team of experts to assess the cost of climate change to Greece.
The latest report they prepared for the Bank of Greece in 2009 showed that by 2100, this figure will exceed 821 billion U.S. dollars (704 billion euros), twice the national debt and almost the current annual gross domestic product (GDP). Quadruple.
This figure does not include the cost of relocating villages and rebuilding ports due to rising sea levels. Zerefos said the update scheduled to be released early next year will make the cost much higher.
“The worst-hit sector is agriculture… We will have to replace the plants we grow with more drought-resistant plants. Farmers will have to use smarter methods to manage their land. Arable land will shrink and be used by so-called smart agriculture. replace.”
‘no water’
This has already begun to happen in Thessaly Plain, the Granary in Greece.
“This year the irrigated crops have been reduced by 10%, which means 2,500 to 3,000 hectares [6,180 to 7,400 acres], Attributed to the lack of water and the cost of water,” said reporter Yiorgos Roustas, who reports on agriculture for Larissa-based newspaper Eleftheria.
He said the problem is that the Pineos River, which runs through Thessaly, dries up for the first time. Farms that draw water from irrigation reservoirs irrigated by rivers suck them dry.
“These [reservoirs] It dried up because the heat wave made it necessary to water cotton and corn three to four times a week instead of twice, and because there was no water,” Roustas said.
As Zerefos had foreseen, the result was a replacement of crops.
“People are switching from cotton, corn, alfalfa to wheat, barley, and olives,” Rustas said.
In addition to the cost of losing economic activity, there are also compensation costs for natural disasters, such as Summer fire.
The government said it will help rebuild houses and businesses that have been razed to the ground, carry out terrace work to prevent soil erosion in burned forests, and then reforest, compensate farmers for loss of income and equipment, and provide tax relief.
Al Jazeera estimates that these commitments alone amount to at least US$147 million (€126 million), which does not include compensation for the loss of fruit trees and farm animals, or tax losses.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also stated that he will spend 350 million U.S. dollars (300 million euros) on more firefighting equipment in the next few years.
The $821 billion bill seems to have begun to flood in.
Experts predict that by 2100, the total loss of climate change to Greece may exceed 821 billion U.S. dollars [File: Thodoris Nikolaou/AP]Disaster forecast
The environmental literature of Greece and the Mediterranean reads coldly.
“Climate change in the Mediterranean Basin… is faster than global trends,” said MedECC, a Mediterranean panel of experts on climate and environmental change, in its first assessment of the region published in September last year.
And average Global temperature According to the report, it has risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius compared with the pre-industrial era, and the average temperature of the entire Mediterranean has been 1.5 degrees Celsius higher, and is expected to rise by 3.8 degrees Celsius to 6.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, in accordance with current trends.
A 2017 study by the European Commission’s Scientists’ Joint Research Center estimated that by 2100, the sea level around Europe will rise by 57 to 81 cm; Saw a few times.
The JRC report states: “This increase in the frequency of incidents that are now considered exceptions may push existing coastal protection structures beyond their design limits.”
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its sixth assessment last month, predicting reduced rainfall, higher temperatures and more frequent droughts in the Mediterranean.
“The past two years are indicative [of the future],” said Dimitris Ibrahim, climate and energy policy officer of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Greece. good’. “
Given the risks that Greece faces from climate change, WWF believes that the government has moved in the right direction. It has pledged to stop burning coal for power generation by 2028, which is earlier than most parts of the European Union. It has also made progress in installing renewable energy capacity.
In 2019, Greece ranked ninth in the world in terms of renewable energy use, with 29% of its electricity coming from renewable energy sources.
It plans to spend 43 billion euros ($51 billion) to promote renewable energy and natural gas within this decade. By 2030, the contribution of renewable energy to the electricity structure is expected to exceed 60%, exceeding the EU’s target.
But this is not enough. Even if Greece achieves its 2030 goals, renewable energy will account for 35% of total final energy consumption, including heating, cooling, transportation, and electricity.
Greenhouse gas emissions are expected to fall by 42% in 2030, instead of the 55% stipulated by the European Union.
Ibrahim believes that there are still some low-hanging fruit in terms of energy saving.
“Our national goal is to carry out 60,000 renovations by 2030… We think it should be at least 100,000. In Greece, we have 4 million houses, of which 2.7 million were built before 1980, and there is absolutely no insulation …This should be the most important thing.”
Call for more “ambition”
He said that the Greek political elite does not seem to understand the urgency of this issue.
“We need better coordination within the government, better cooperation between all parties, and more ambitious strategies.”
However, the fire seemed to stimulate Mizotakis.
On September 6, he appointed Christos Stylianides, a former European Commissioner, as the country’s first climate crisis minister to coordinate the response to climate change.
He promised to announce the country’s first comprehensive climate law before world leaders meet in Glasgow at the end of October to set new environmental goals.
He pledged to protect 30% of Greece’s land and sea territories by 2030 in accordance with the recommendations of the United Nations.
Even if everything done by Greece is perfect, it is still at the mercy of other carbon emitters. The IPCC believes that if countries commit to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the global temperature rise by 2100 may remain at 1.4C. But climate scientists and energy experts admit that established policies are not enough to achieve this goal.
In the latest World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency predicts that emissions will increase from 31.5 gigatons in 2020 to 36 gigatons in 2030.
With this in mind, Ibrahim said: “I have an eight-year-old child. I am very worried about what will happen to him after graduating from university. I am not worried about whether he will have a good job or a good salary. I am worried that he can Go down the street safely.”
Greece’s summer wildfires seem to have stimulated Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Kyriakos Mitsotakis) [File: Lisi Niesner/Reuters]
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