The frequency and scale of the disasters — some natural and some entirely manmade – affecting the Eastern Mediterranean continue to surprise us. The natural disasters seem to be endured rather than anticipated. These include the summer fires experienced by Greece and Turkey (two countries with strained relations, but nonetheless united by the destruction of their forests), the autumn floods that ravage the Libyan coast and sweep away entire towns, and the repeated earthquakes arising at the edge of the tectonic plates that separate Africa from Europe, while also inexorably bringing them closer together. As for manmade disasters, there are many recurrent problems and few positive breakthroughs: Cyprus is still torn in two, Tunisia is still being destabilised by waves of refugees from Libya, and war is raging in Palestine. In the short, medium, and long term, everyone is losing out.
There are also areas where human and natural factors intersect, and it is now well established that mankind is modifying the abiotic components of the environment: the temperature is rising, water is evaporating. According to data from MedECC (Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change / Plan Bleu, 2022), the Mediterranean equivalent of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the average temperature in the Mediterranean region rose by 1.6°C between 1850 and 2022, half a degree more than the global trend (+1.1°C).
In the Mediterranean, the question is no longer whether we will reach +3°C or +4°C by the year 2100, but whether the increase will be as much as 5°C or 6°C, far beyond the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreements. The “Eastern Mediterranean house is burning”, and not only are we “looking the other way”, but its people are also killing one other. The warning issued by French President Jacques Chirac at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 is now more relevant than ever.
A Scenario of Peace and Unity
What if, by 2050, the countries and communities that make up the Eastern Mediterranean succeed in making peace? What if, in the face of worldwide upheavals, global warming, and the associated erosion of water resources and biodiversity, people of goodwill manage to join forces rather than fighting one another? Climate change is underway and it is unlikely that we will be able to avoid the temperature rises mentioned above. This does not mean that we should relax our attempts at mitigation, but we must recognise that these efforts are now undertaken for the sake of the generations who will be born after 2100. Remember that carbon dioxide has a half-life of a century, as does nitrous oxide, which exerts a global warming effect 300 times greater than that of CO2. In the meantime, we need to be bold in our strategies for adaptation, and here there is a real urgency to act. The stakes are very short-term. We need to save lives, cities, regions, countries, and civilisations — some of which go back thousands of years — from a painful extinction.
To make concrete progress, we need to start by sharing best practices in terms of water resource management, agriculture, and even social cultures. For example, the Southern Mediterranean could pass on to the Northern Mediterranean the taste and know-how of citrus fruits, Aleppo pines, and desert date palms. In the same vein, with regard to urban spaces, it would be a good idea to draw on the achievements of the towns and villages at the gateway to the Sahara, in particular those in the Egyptian White Desert or the Israeli Negev, in order to rethink the urban planning of the cities of the North, many of which have tree-free avenues that give pride of place to cars while also contributing to stifling summer heat. We need to embark on a vast project to build or rebuild sustainable cities. Climate change is forcing us to (re)build the future. And on the sea, why not prioritise the use of solar- and wind-powered shipping rather than fossil fuel-powered aircraft to cross the Mediterranean, where the distances involved are relatively small. Let us steer a course towards a low-carbon future with wind in our sails!
From a more conceptual point of view, based in particular on the advances of the European Green Deal (2019) and the technological progress that the European Union is making, we could envisage a shared Mediterranean green taxonomy. This tool would help us to channel public and private finances towards investment in a better future than that which we are currently facing, at the start of the twenty-first century. At the same time, technology transfers should be put in place in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Each country on its own will not be able to do anything that is really useful to the collective, but working together they can pave the way for a more aware and better organised world, in order to face the challenges and fears centred around Mare nostrum at this start of a new millennium. The Mediterranean is not only a laboratory for techniques for adapting to climate disruption, but also a region that is sounding the alarm about the need to “roll up our sleeves” in our efforts towards mitigation, and to undertake measures that go beyond the usual rhetoric and empty strategies.
A return to a certain harmony within mankind is undoubtedly the first step to be taken towards the search for harmony between mankind and nature. Let us be realistic: we need to rediscover the value of fraternity, and the ecological challenges ahead should both help us and force us to do so. The environment is a driving force for peace, but peace is also the essential prerequisite of environmental protection and the starting point for a form of development that is not only sustainable, but fundamentally imbued with humanity.
A Scenario of Conflict and Individualism
And if not? Then the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world, as conceived by the historian Fernand Braudel, will die. The children born in this region will abandon it.
To the south, people will seek to cross the Sahara to reach the equator, where agricultural and forestry production will be boosted by a combination of increased CO2, abundant water, and record sunshine. Unfortunately, there will also be new difficulties in surviving there, since high humidity levels place a severe strain on the most fragile organisms, including young children and the elderly, who have a lesser capacity to sweat. You are then at risk of dying, not from lack of water, but from heat, because it becomes impossible to sweat and so to maintain your internal body temperature at 37.5°C.
To the north, the countries of Europe, including the Balkans — whose future membership of the European Union is no longer in any doubt — will be overwhelmed by a wave of migrants. Such a wave will, in the first instance, crash forcefully onto the shores of the northern Mediterranean. The EU will certainly do what it can to stem the tide, especially given the rise of nationalist movements in many of its Member States. A strong border police force will be established, ready to return migrants — those who have not perished at sea — to their countries of origin, which will have become uninhabitable. Donald Trump was open about his desire to build a border wall along the Rio Grande, in full view of everyone, in an attempt to block migration from Mexico into Texas or California. All we Europeans have to do is turn a blind eye to the corpses settling in the depths. Can we be content with this state of affairs, or even resigned to it?
We have a choice of what 2050 might be: either the turning point towards a challenging fifty years or so, or the start of a real hell on earth. What if we were to try to get through this phase as painlessly as possible? This would be a way of mobilising new generations of young people around a genuinely useful project, which would also be the best antidote to the growing eco-anxiety. We would be paving the way for a twenty-second century that is bright, rather than burning hot. We can then hope to earn the thanks, rather than the curses, of all the children of the century to come, whatever their race or creed. This will require the cooperation of Jews, Christians, and Muslims (in order of their historical emergence), as well as agnostics who are curious about science and concerned about the future of our so-called postmodern societies.
So what scenario should we choose for 2050? The MED2050 foresight exercise, led by Plan Bleu within the framework of the UNEP Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), is an opportunity to open up the debate and start combining our efforts.
This article has been translated from French by Sam Ferguson.
