Climate change could affect tourism in the Mediterranean

“In fact, climate stabilisation at less than 2°C warming would seem to imply moving beyond zero emissions into negative emissions before around 2070,” he stated, “something no one is mentioning in the current negotiations.”

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The Mediterranean basin is likely to become drier and significantly hotter in summer due to climate change – with considerable knock-on effects on tourism, Prof. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele told this paper in an interview.

Vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Professor of climatology at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) visited Malta for three days of meetings with government and academics as well as to deliver a lecture at the university.

Apart from tourism, there will be major impacts on agriculture, hydroelectric installations, health, with a serious risk of increased forest fires and forest diebacks. Marine shell-forming organisms (such as corals) and their dependent species will also be affected because of warming seawater and its acidification. A 50 centimetre rise in sea level by the end of this century, considered in the “likely range”, would displace a significant fraction of the over 10 million Egyptians living in the Nile Delta, its major agricultural area.

The particular challenges facing Mediterranean islands such as Malta are enormous, especially in terms of their coastal areas and biodiversity, he warned.

The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation and the UN Environment Programme, a few months after Malta tabled its historic draft resolution at the UN General Assembly, calling for global action to combat climate change.

The resolution’s endorsement led to the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 entering into force in 1994 whose 193 contracting parties have since met annually to hammer out agreed measures to slow global warming and deal with its impacts. UNFCCC’s first executive secretary was Malta’s recently retired Ambassador for Climate Change, Michael Zammit Cutajar.

IPCC’s periodic assessment reports (the fourth issued in 2007) comprise an exhaustive peer review by over 2000 scientists of the existing scientific literature on climate change and present projections, but not predictions, of possible future developments, Prof. van Ypersele explained. However, since IPCC’s actual members are governments, the reports provide them with the assessed consensus view of scientists, and present policy options rather than formal policy advice.

There will be significant changes in our working methods as we prepare the fifth Assessment Report, to be issued in mid-2014, which will provide the best scientific basis for further action by governments to prevent and adapt to climate change.

“Apart from reviewing a great deal of new scientific studies and data on all aspects of climate change and related technological pathways emerging since our last report, leading climate modelling centres are now working on a new family of scenarios built around four Representative Concentration Pathways (concentration levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) from low to high – the latter being business as usual. This approach will also incorporate alternative assumptions about future global climate policy.”

While December’s 16th UNFCCC conference in Cancun confirmed support for limiting the increase in global average temperature above the pre-industrial level to +2C, over 100 of the most vulnerable developing nations are citing post-2007 scientific findings to call for a more ambitious target of +1.5C or less – and won agreement to a review of the current target between 2013 and 2015.

Prof. van Ypersele confirmed that the forthcoming report would certainly also reflect and assess such findings, setting out projections of measures needed to achieve such targets – which could involve far more deeper and more rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than currently under discussion in the UN negotiations.

“However, my IPCC role does not allow me to comment on the positions taken by various countries or the likelihood of governments agreeing in time to measures needed to successfully combat climate change,” he said.

In his lecture at the University entitled ‘Climate Change, Challenge or Opportunity?’ Prof. van Ypersele emphasised the reality of climate change, 2010 being the warmest year on record. “The world needs to rapidly halve the eight billion tonnes of carbon it puts into the atmosphere each year, 1.6 billion due to deforestation and 6.4bn due to burning fossil fuels. “Vegetation and the oceans, already recycling almost 100 per cent of their own emissions, are only absorbing about 4.8 billion of this – and their absorptive capacity is now declining due to the incipient impacts of climate change.”

“In fact, climate stabilisation at less than 2°C warming would seem to imply moving beyond zero emissions into negative emissions before around 2070,” he stated, “something no one is mentioning in the current negotiations.”

“This is a huge challenge, but can be met by focusing on the major opportunities for reducing emissions in both developed and developing nations – the latter now account for over half global carbon dioxide emissions. Projections based on currently available and developing technologies show that by 2030 enormous reductions could be achieved in these nations in buildings, followed by industry, agriculture and the energy supply 

“However, opportunities increase as the price of carbon increases – a key policy option. Only a few people will do what is necessary out of idealism, but they start to act when otherwise they have to pay.”

Energy efficiency and renewable energies emerge as the most promising emission reduction technology options for both 2030 and up to 2100, with nuclear 

energy ranked well below several additional options. “One result of the Japanese nuclear disaster is that it will lead to an increase in costs due to a broader range of safety features being demanded from the industry. The cost factor will doubtless influence future energy policy choices.”

In May and November, IPCC will be issuing two comprehensive Special Reports – “Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation” and “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation”. These will be formally presented to the UNFCCC. 

Admitting the claim by policymakers that IPCC information is not presented in an easy manner so as to take decisions, Prof. van Ypersele agreed that the Panel could improve its communications, “however, the IPCC plenary (of governments) wants to keep control of what IPCC does, and would prefer having other bodies simplify the IPCC 

message”.

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