Can COP27 boost peace in fast-warming Mediterranean region?


[CAIRO] The Mediterranean Sea is the stuff of legend. Home to ancient empires that spanned centuries, it remains one of the world’s most populated regions. But it has also become one of the world’s most polluted seas – and it now faces the growing threat of climate change.

Located at the crossroads of Africa, Asia and Europe, the Mediterranean Sea is one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, with about 30 per cent of global maritime traffic, according to the UN Environment Programme. The sea also has 46,000 kilometres of coastline along 25 countries with more than 150 million people living along the coasts.

Grammenos Mastrojeni is a professor, diplomat, and senior deputy secretary general of a leading regional body. He tells SciDev.Net that successful climate negotiations at COP27 could pave the way to the Mediterranean becoming a sea of peace.

Rising temperatures

“Climate change is a global threat, but in the Euro-Mediterranean region, it has its own particular consistency,” says Mastrojeni, energy and climate action head at the Union for the Mediterranean, a 42-country organisation that includes the 15 countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean and all countries of the European Union.

“The Mediterranean region is the second fastest warming region in the globe, and the waters of the Mediterranean Sea are the fastest warming too.”

This year, the European Space Agency (ESA) detected one of the most intense Mediterranean marine heatwaves – with sea surface temperatures reaching 5 degrees Celsius higher than average.

Marine heatwaves and higher water temperatures threaten biodiversity and the fisheries, aquaculture and tourism industries that drive the region’s economies and feed communities. The ESA says these rising temperatures are also causing more intense tropical storms and making droughts and floods more likely.

Similar warnings were raised by an international group of scientists in a paper published in June in Reviews of Geophysics. The research found that the region was warming almost twice as fast as the global trend and more rapidly than most other inhabited parts of the world.

“For the remainder of the century, climate projections indicate an overall warming of up to 5 degrees Celsius and more, being strongest in the summer. A strong increase in the intensity and duration of heatwaves is expected,” the paper said.

Crisis and cooperation

To meet these growing transboundary threats, the researchers argue that stronger collaboration between Mediterranean countries would be “indispensable”.

While some regions have formed party groupings and negotiating blocs to take part in United Nations climate conferences, there is no such body for the Mediterranean. But at this year’s COP27, due to kick off in Egypt in November, there will be a regional presence.

The Union for the Mediterranean has joined with partner organisations and a scientific committee led by the Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change to set up the Mediterranean Pavilion.

“The Mediterranean has its own story to tell,” Mastrojeni says. “So, we decided to bring together Mediterranean stakeholders ranging from government officials, civil society, business, science, and finance, for the first time in the history of private negotiations, in order to let them tell their stories.”

In 2020, the Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change released the First Mediterranean Assessment Report on climate and environmental change in the Mediterranean Basin, which revealed that it was “virtually certain” that sea surface warming of up to four degrees Celsius would continue this century.

These rising temperatures will affect all aspects of life, the report said, from water, to ecosystems, food, health and security. “Despite strong regional variations, summer rainfall will likely be reduced by ten to 30 per cent in some regions, increasing existing water shortages, desertification and decreasing agricultural productivity,” the report said.

The report emphasised the importance of regional cooperation. “Energy market integration and cooperation are crucial to unleashing cost-effective climate change mitigation,” the report said, adding: “If Euro-Mediterranean energy cooperation wants to thrive, it is necessary to reconsider who matters in energy security, from market and state actors to society at large, and consider particularly marginalised sectors of the population.”

North-south dialogue

Mastrojeni agrees that collective threats demand collective action. He refers to the Mediterranean story as “a story of threats, but it is also and above all the story of solutions”.

“We need each other,” Mastrojeni says. “There is a lot in the south that the north needs, and there is a lot in the north that the south needs.

“If we want to tackle climate change, what we have to do is put together what we have, for instance, solar power from the south with hydrogen technology from the north.” He said that water sharing strategies and agricultural innovations that could reduce water use in drier parts of the region were also critical.

A euro 16.4 million (US$16.4 million) European Union project aimed at supporting the transition towards sustainable production for a circular economy, known as SwitchMEDII, is due to end this year.

Mastrojeni said the result could be a “new economy” that can tackle climate change: “It’s actually an economy that redistributes income in an even way and lessens the differences between the rich and the poor. It will be a driver for development and employment in regions that badly need it.”

And an Afro-Mediterranean hosted COP could offer a chance to strengthen connections between the north and south.

“The Mediterranean Sea has always been a sea of great civilisations, but it has never completely been a sea of peace,” Mastrojeni says.

“If we do what we are obliged to do to face climate change – which is putting what we have together – not only can we adapt to and mitigate climate change, but we are doing the one thing which is necessary to make the Mediterranean become finally a sea of peace.”

This article is part of our Spotlight on ‘Africa’s crisis COP’

This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.





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