A CLIMATE OF PEACE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN

doubtless

climate change is a global problem

but its impact and its severity varies a

lot from one place to the other

after the arctic the mediterranean is

the fastest warming

region in the world it warms 20 percent

faster

than the global average and this doesn’t

promise anything good

for us all a recent scientific report

sponsored by the union for the

mediterranean

to which more than 680 scientists from

all over the mediterranean contributed

tells us that the future

could be difficult for instance it

forecasts

heavier storms mega fires

but also an increase of people

who will be thirsty 250 million

people in a few years could be more to

scarcity

or the level of the mediterranean could

increase up to one meter before the end

of the century

and 25 centimeters in just a few years a

higher level of water of 25 centimeters

doesn’t scare

anyone but only if we forget that the

problem is not only

with the vulnerable coastal cities like

our precious venice

it is with the lands surrounding the

mediterranean

25 centimeters more salty water entering

the lands

will sterilize those lands and we cannot

forget that 42 percent of the world

population lives around the coast

and that agricultural production is

concentrated around the coast

just imagine 25 more centimeters could

salinize the delta of the nile

and jeopardize the agriculture of a

country that has

more or less 100 million

people this severe impacts become

more scary because they overlap a

situation which is characterized by

a high difference a high asymmetry a

situation in which there are strong

communities

and weak communities a good portrait

of these differences is given by the

international commerce in our area

around the mediterranean

of old international exchanges ninety

percent

takes place among north rim countries

nine percent between north rim and south

stream countries

and only 0.9 percent among

south rim countries it tells us why

if we do not take measures

to fight climate change and to adapt to

it

this crazy climate could become a wind

of war

over the mediterranean so what do we

have to do do we have to prepare to

fight

it would be the most stupid thing to do

there is another solution

and it is science that points it out

both

harder sciences like physics and more

social sciences

like economy tell us one

fundamental truth that in face of a

change

of such speed and of such

width there is not one single community

not one single country even the

strongest

who will be able to face it on its own

we need each other for instance

to fight climate change we need new

technologies

but what technologies up here in the

north technology reminds us of machines

of devices but

we cannot forget that the problem that

europe will have to face

is aridity and the people who have

experienced

thousands years experience in facing

aridity are in the south for instance

we can build modern fridges

but down there in the south along the

silk road

there are buildings cone-shaped

buildings called the yak chal

that have been keeping an inner

temperature up to -4

to preserve the merchandises

along the route and again

if we think about irrigation up here in

the north yes

we can devise wonderful computers but

down there in the south in persia for

thousands of years

they have grown gardens in the desert

thanks to canals that

are dug under the sand and that capture

moisture

from the atmosphere and the soil they’re

called the

cannot equally how many diseases do we

cause to ourselves

how much discomfort with what we call

air conditioning

whereas in the middle of the desert

there are houses

that have a very nice temperature inside

while outside is maybe 50 degrees due to

a technology called

the wind towers that capture the winds

but even when it gets to technology as

we know it today

industrial advanced technology we just

cannot

leave each one on its own imagine

solar you can do solar panels wherever

you want

but the real sun is in the south

and so we need interconnections among

the two shores

and inside the shores the same thing

applies for wind

you can build windmills everywhere but

the really strong wind

is in the balkans their production

becomes useful to everyone

even nature tells us that we cannot just

face it on our own

in the past 10 years roughly

the agricultural and forestry

communities

started to cooperate more and more

between the two shores of the

mediterranean and it was spontaneous

without any intervention by governments

why

because these communities are aware of

one thing that puts us together

there are some species that are lively

and productive now in the south

adapted to drought that must be

preserved because

we have to feed those people but those

same species

will maybe save our agricultures and our

economies

in the future so what is climate change

telling us over the mediterranean

there is one solution and it is not only

a solution to climate change

you see our sea has been the cradle of

civilizations but it has never been

a sea of complete peace a lot of

conflicts

the root of which are those differences

that i mentioned

before well if in fighting climate

change

we conceive a new economy one which is

based on the principle that i need you

and not on the principle that i am

competing with you then

while tackling climate change we come to

on the only sensible solution

which is called peace over the

mediterranean climate change has one

solution

peace

you