Some 15 Mediterranean countries, including Israel and the Palestinian Authority, agreed yesterday to work together to combat the effects of climate change that threaten the region.
The countries signed a declaration at a climate change conference in Greece which called for lowering carbon emissions, respecting the region’s natural resources and developing common Mediterranean positions on climate change.
“Climate change threatens our way of life as people of the Mediterranean,” said Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who initiated the conference attended by his counterparts from Turkey, Libya, Malta, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority and environment ministers from some 15 countries.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi attended the conference with Malta’s ambassador for climate change, Michael Zammit Cutajar.
Yesterday’s declaration said it aimed to influence regional and international accords as well as projects which could be launched by the European Union of the Mediterranean.
It also comes about a month before the UN conference on climate change which will be held in late November in Cancun, Mexico.
The agreement among the Mediterranean nations to address the problem of global warming, despite political conflicts between some of them, was hailed by some as a diplomatic breakthrough.
“It is a new way of doing diplomacy because all these countries have a lot of problems to deal with – economic crises, political instability and other issues – and the conflicts between them,” said a diplomat from one of the participating countries who requested anonymity.
“However, they sat around the same table realising that they all face the same threat to their culture and their way of life.”
Some of the problems the Mediterranean region faces from the effects of climate change centre on access to water, energy, and desertification.
“If we do not decide to manage the planet together... there will be conflicts over the problems” created by climate change, said Papandreou, who would like to create a Mediterranean fund to finance green projects.
While not among the world’s most polluting nations, the Mediterranean countries nonetheless face an increase of four degrees in average temperatures and a 70 per cent drop in precipitation in the coming years, participants at the conference said.
Climate change also could reduce the harvests of the Mediterranean’s key crops such as olives and grapes, Rajendra Pachuauri, the head of the UN intergovernmental group of climate experts, told the conference in a video message.
It could also affect a key economic sector in the region, namely, tourism.
“Tourism is expected to decline globally, especially during the summer months,” Rajendra Pachauri said.