Environmental News from Europe: The Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the world as a whole, raising concerns about the impacts that climate change and other environmental upheavals will have on ecosystems, agriculture, and the region’s 542 million people.
Heatwaves, drought, extreme weather, and sea-level rise are among the impacts that the region can expect to see continue through the end of the century, and failing to stop emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could make these issues worse.
Charting a course that both mitigates climate change and bolsters adaption to its effects is further complicated by the Mediterranean’s mix of countries, cultures, and socioeconomics, leading to wide gaps in vulnerability in the region.
In the century ahead, the region’s large and socioeconomically diverse human population of more than 540 million will need to grapple with this rapidly warming climate. They’ll also have to find ways to cope with the other problems converging here: threatened biodiversity, high pollution, surging aridity, and increasing land degradation, among them. Climatologists, social scientists, and development professionals are already wrestling with this perplexing set of issues in hopes of finding solutions, or at the least figuring out a way for the cradle of civilization to endure.
To read top environmental news from Europe, please visit https://earth5r.org
Source: Mongabay