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Monday 9 November 2015 07.00 GMTLast modified on Monday 9 November 201507.21 GMT
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For most Europeans, the climate change threat is elsewhere: the rising sea levels in south Asia; crop failures in Africa; mightier storms in the tropics, drought in the developing world.
But as François Hollande prepares to host a crucial UN climate summit at the end of this month, his fellow Europeans are already facing subtle harbingers of global warming. Seas, mountains, forests, plains, towns and cities – the risks within Europe itself are many, varied and increasingly difficult to ignore.
Spain
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Workers harvest olives near Córdoba in Spain. Photograph: Samuel Aranda/Getty Images
Forty per cent of the world’s olive oil production comes from Andalucía, which boasts a 1,000-year history of cultivation. Today, 1.5m hectares are dedicated to the crop. But climate change could transform this landscape and erase the cultivation of Andalucían olives.
“The commodities most harmed by climate change will be those which cannot adapt, like the olive grove or the vineyard,” said Ana Iglesias, agronomist engineer at the Technical University of Madrid and one of the Spanish researchers who contributed to the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPPC) report.
Furthermore, olive groves and vineyards do not offer a quick turnaround, with the plants taking decades to reach full maturity. “Now tremendous investments are being made in vineyards and other locations, based on current climate conditions,” she said. “Some areas in Spain will not be cultivated, won’t have any human presence, and will turn into deserts.”
Adding to the problem of the rise in temperature is the increase in severe weather phenomena such as hail and droughts, which hit farmers directly. “I predict a productivity reduction of the extensive and intense cultivations,” said Marta Rivera, an expert in food security at the University of Vic in Catalonia and also a member of the IPCC. “It is not so much a problem affecting a specific cultivation, but rather a conflict of food security.”
Citrus crops have already been hit by the heat this year, with production of some types of mandarins and clementines forecast to be down by as much as 25%.
Manuel Planelles, El País
Italy
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A disused chairlift at Saint Grée. Photograph: Guido Montani/OneShot/La Stampa
Above woods filled with chestnut trees is a fir-covered hill with three ski runs. The highest point reaches 1,600 metres; the lowest is close to 1,000 metres. The resort is called Viola Saint Grée, in Italy’s Maritime Alps, on the border of Piedmont and Liguria. The three lifts, one chairlift and two conveyor belts, look a little forlorn. There has been no shortage of investment here – but there is a shortage of snow.
Saint Grée is the picture of abandonment, an ex-resort. It sprang up like a mushroom in the 1970s, after Ligurian entrepreneurs saw a great opportunity for tourism in an area where the humid air of the sea brought abundant snowfall.
Then the snow dried up. Bankruptcy ensued and bailouts were made, including a €700,000 injection this year. But the snow never came back, and climate forecasts suggesting average temperatures will have risen by 2C by 2100 will doom Viola Saint Grée to a ski-less future.
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Discarded ski equipment. Photograph: Guido Montani/OneShot/La Stampa
It is one of 50 minor resorts in the Alps that have no place in the economic development of skiing, according to Laurent Vanat, one of the world’s leading ski tourism experts. The highest point of the Viola skiing area is 400 metres below the level guaranteed to have natural snow.
The forecast from the Fondazione Montagna Sicura, an Alpine research centre in Courmayeur, is grim: “The western Alps will have to deal with average annual temperature increases of 2-3C by the end of the century. As a result the limit of the rain/snow line will rise by 500 metres, and the duration of snow on the ground will drop by 20%.”
Vanat said: “The big ski resorts have grasped the significance of the climate risk in the past decade and have taken countermeasures, including the production of artificial snow. The Alps are a unique area for attracting skiers – of whom 30% are foreign – but the expansion in the skiing market is elsewhere, in Russia, China and central Asia.”
Enrico Martinet, La Stampa
Poland
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A walk on the beach after sunset on the Polish Baltic Sea coast near Choczewo.
Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters/Corbis
Poland has already spent €13bn trying to mitigate the climate change threat, ploughing most of it into efforts to protect cities from the heatwaves and downpours that are becoming more common.
But the biggest risk could be the Baltic Sea. “Most of the shoreline is already retreating, and the coastal communities are pillaging their own natural resources,” said Tomasz Łabuz from Szczecin University, who has studied the Polish coast for years.
In the past 100 years the Baltic Sea has risen by 20cm, which is not yet a threat but is ominous given the proliferation of hotels and apartment buildings being built right on the coastline.
“We’re not only throwing millions of zloty into the sea, but we’re also creating a dangerous precedent,” said Paweł Średziński of WWF Poland. “Soon you’ll see investors trying to develop the wild parts of the shoreline.”
According to a survey conducted by TNS Poland for the environment ministry last year, some 86% of Poles believe climate change is an important issue. “Nobody is questioning whether global warming is actually happening,” said the environment minister, Maciej Grabowski.
Yet in an essay published recently on a climate science website, Szymon Malinowski, an atmospheric physicist from Warsaw University, complained about the low level of knowledge of MPs on parliamentary environmental committees as well as the poor condition of Polish climatology: there are just a handful of scientists carrying out internationally recognised studies on the climate in Poland. In this case, the scientist observed, it seemed that “parliament is sometimes quite a good reflection of the state of society”.
Tomasz Ulanowski, Gazeta Wyborcza
United Kingdom
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Flooding in the village of Northmoor Green, Somerset, in February 2014. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Severe floods across the UK last year may be a sign of what is to come if climate change is not curtailed. The winter of 2013-2014 was the wettest on record for the country, with severe storms starting in October. By the end of February, more than 7,800 homes and 3,000 businesses had been flooded.
“Flooding is the greatest threat to the UK from climate change,” said Daniel Johns, head of adaptation at the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). “The basic physics say there is an increased chance of flooding due to climate change. The hot air can contain more moisture so you get more evaporation from the ocean taken into the atmosphere and warm, moist air is like rocket fuel for storms.”
FacebookTwitterPinterest
A dead beech in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
Perhaps the biggest threat that Germany faces is the slow degradation of its forests, with heat and drought affecting the northern lowlands.
Christopher Reyer, forest ecologist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the beech was in danger because it did not sit well in sandy ground. Rising temperatures could encourage the growth of trees on higher plains that were once far too cold. “But the consensus is that most of the effects of climate change will be negative,” said Reyer.
The majority of Germany should be covered by deciduous trees – beech and oak in particular. But there are almost no more natural forests left. Instead, what is growing is what was planted: in the north, mainly pines; in the south, spruce. But spruce could also be a big loser from climate change because it cannot handle drought and its shallow roots are easily damaged in storms. The tree is also at risk from pests, such as pine moths, which feed on its needles as caterpillar larvae.
Other insects become stronger as the temperature rises by a few degrees, with bark beetles’ reproductive cycle increasing to three or even four times a year (they currently have a maximum of two). New pests could be attracted by the warmer weather. Forest fires are also expected to increase, although it is still unknown whether climate change will lead to heavier storms in the south-west of Germany.
Some experts say mixed forests are important, comparing them to an equity portfolio that reduces the risk through mixture. Some are calling for the spread of species such as the Douglas fir or red oak, which do not grow naturally in Germany but can survive drought and pests. However, others swear by a “natural” forest in which only a region’s native plants grow.
Tina Baier, Süddeutsche Zeitung
France
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Greater flamingos in the Camargue. Photograph: FLPA/Rex Shutterstock
An excavator was busy in the Fangassier pond in Camargue, which had been drained for the duration of work to create a refuge where flamingos could stay safe from the foxes lurking around the old swamps.
Something had to be done: their old island nest is now under water.
The Camargue, a natural park on the Mediterranean coast in south-east France, is famed for numerous plant and animal species as well as its rice and salt marshes – but it is in danger. The sea will eventually end up covering much of a 6,500-hectare area of the park recently acquired by the French coastal protection agency in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône.
The group that owned the Salins du Midi salt marshes started selling them in 2008 because the rising water meant the coastal ponds were becoming harder and harder to operate, despite the use of electric pumps and embankments.
The new owners have given up fighting the waters head-on. “We estimate that 2,000 hectares will end up becoming salt marshes again, where bulls and horses traditionally roam in the region, whilst the lower parts will be submerged – although we don’t exactly know how far,” said Gaël Hemery, who helps look after the Camargue park.
Hemery looked over at a part of the seawall now reduced to almost nothing. Fifty years ago, 300 metres of beach stretched out in front of the wall. The sea has proved stronger. Martine Valo, Le Monde
Mediterranean Sea
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Mediterranean bream near Marseille in southern France. Photograph: Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty
The Mediterranean is a different sea to the one that lapped Europe’s shores 50 years ago. It’s two or three degrees warmer on average. The layer of warm water is deeper than before, and the period of the year during which the water stays warm is longer.
As a result, marine biologists say that as many as 700 species not detected in the sea before have arrived. All are tropical, and many have come in from the Red Sea via the Suez canal. It’s not just fish such as the cornetfish, but species of jellyfish and algae that are enjoying their new Mediterranean homes. The warmer waters are encouraging species of wrasse and parrotfish to move further north.
We have badly managed a resource believing it is everlasting - it isn’t
It is bad news for some types of coral that don’t like the heat, and that used to thrive below the warmer layer of water. Traditional Mediterranean fish populations have suffered as well.
We have badly managed a resource believing it is everlasting. It isn’t. The presence of traditional fishermen is a barometer of a sea’s health. A sea will be healthy while they’re at sea. They too are disappearing, and we should worry greatly.
Shares
380
Comments
292
Save for later
For most Europeans, the climate change threat is elsewhere: the rising sea levels in south Asia; crop failures in Africa; mightier storms in the tropics, drought in the developing world.
But as François Hollande prepares to host a crucial UN climate summit at the end of this month, his fellow Europeans are already facing subtle harbingers of global warming. Seas, mountains, forests, plains, towns and cities – the risks within Europe itself are many, varied and increasingly difficult to ignore.
Spain
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Workers harvest olives near Córdoba in Spain. Photograph: Samuel Aranda/Getty Images
Forty per cent of the world’s olive oil production comes from Andalucía, which boasts a 1,000-year history of cultivation. Today, 1.5m hectares are dedicated to the crop. But climate change could transform this landscape and erase the cultivation of Andalucían olives.
“The commodities most harmed by climate change will be those which cannot adapt, like the olive grove or the vineyard,” said Ana Iglesias, agronomist engineer at the Technical University of Madrid and one of the Spanish researchers who contributed to the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPPC) report.
Furthermore, olive groves and vineyards do not offer a quick turnaround, with the plants taking decades to reach full maturity. “Now tremendous investments are being made in vineyards and other locations, based on current climate conditions,” she said. “Some areas in Spain will not be cultivated, won’t have any human presence, and will turn into deserts.”
Adding to the problem of the rise in temperature is the increase in severe weather phenomena such as hail and droughts, which hit farmers directly. “I predict a productivity reduction of the extensive and intense cultivations,” said Marta Rivera, an expert in food security at the University of Vic in Catalonia and also a member of the IPCC. “It is not so much a problem affecting a specific cultivation, but rather a conflict of food security.”
Citrus crops have already been hit by the heat this year, with production of some types of mandarins and clementines forecast to be down by as much as 25%.
Manuel Planelles, El País
Italy
FacebookTwitterPinterest
A disused chairlift at Saint Grée. Photograph: Guido Montani/OneShot/La Stampa
Above woods filled with chestnut trees is a fir-covered hill with three ski runs. The highest point reaches 1,600 metres; the lowest is close to 1,000 metres. The resort is called Viola Saint Grée, in Italy’s Maritime Alps, on the border of Piedmont and Liguria. The three lifts, one chairlift and two conveyor belts, look a little forlorn. There has been no shortage of investment here – but there is a shortage of snow.
Saint Grée is the picture of abandonment, an ex-resort. It sprang up like a mushroom in the 1970s, after Ligurian entrepreneurs saw a great opportunity for tourism in an area where the humid air of the sea brought abundant snowfall.
Then the snow dried up. Bankruptcy ensued and bailouts were made, including a €700,000 injection this year. But the snow never came back, and climate forecasts suggesting average temperatures will have risen by 2C by 2100 will doom Viola Saint Grée to a ski-less future.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Discarded ski equipment. Photograph: Guido Montani/OneShot/La Stampa
It is one of 50 minor resorts in the Alps that have no place in the economic development of skiing, according to Laurent Vanat, one of the world’s leading ski tourism experts. The highest point of the Viola skiing area is 400 metres below the level guaranteed to have natural snow.
The forecast from the Fondazione Montagna Sicura, an Alpine research centre in Courmayeur, is grim: “The western Alps will have to deal with average annual temperature increases of 2-3C by the end of the century. As a result the limit of the rain/snow line will rise by 500 metres, and the duration of snow on the ground will drop by 20%.”
Vanat said: “The big ski resorts have grasped the significance of the climate risk in the past decade and have taken countermeasures, including the production of artificial snow. The Alps are a unique area for attracting skiers – of whom 30% are foreign – but the expansion in the skiing market is elsewhere, in Russia, China and central Asia.”
Enrico Martinet, La Stampa
Poland
FacebookTwitterPinterest
A walk on the beach after sunset on the Polish Baltic Sea coast near Choczewo.
Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters/Corbis
Poland has already spent €13bn trying to mitigate the climate change threat, ploughing most of it into efforts to protect cities from the heatwaves and downpours that are becoming more common.
But the biggest risk could be the Baltic Sea. “Most of the shoreline is already retreating, and the coastal communities are pillaging their own natural resources,” said Tomasz Łabuz from Szczecin University, who has studied the Polish coast for years.
In the past 100 years the Baltic Sea has risen by 20cm, which is not yet a threat but is ominous given the proliferation of hotels and apartment buildings being built right on the coastline.
“We’re not only throwing millions of zloty into the sea, but we’re also creating a dangerous precedent,” said Paweł Średziński of WWF Poland. “Soon you’ll see investors trying to develop the wild parts of the shoreline.”
According to a survey conducted by TNS Poland for the environment ministry last year, some 86% of Poles believe climate change is an important issue. “Nobody is questioning whether global warming is actually happening,” said the environment minister, Maciej Grabowski.
Yet in an essay published recently on a climate science website, Szymon Malinowski, an atmospheric physicist from Warsaw University, complained about the low level of knowledge of MPs on parliamentary environmental committees as well as the poor condition of Polish climatology: there are just a handful of scientists carrying out internationally recognised studies on the climate in Poland. In this case, the scientist observed, it seemed that “parliament is sometimes quite a good reflection of the state of society”.
Tomasz Ulanowski, Gazeta Wyborcza
United Kingdom
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Flooding in the village of Northmoor Green, Somerset, in February 2014. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Severe floods across the UK last year may be a sign of what is to come if climate change is not curtailed. The winter of 2013-2014 was the wettest on record for the country, with severe storms starting in October. By the end of February, more than 7,800 homes and 3,000 businesses had been flooded.
“Flooding is the greatest threat to the UK from climate change,” said Daniel Johns, head of adaptation at the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). “The basic physics say there is an increased chance of flooding due to climate change. The hot air can contain more moisture so you get more evaporation from the ocean taken into the atmosphere and warm, moist air is like rocket fuel for storms.”
FacebookTwitterPinterest
A dead beech in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
Perhaps the biggest threat that Germany faces is the slow degradation of its forests, with heat and drought affecting the northern lowlands.
Christopher Reyer, forest ecologist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the beech was in danger because it did not sit well in sandy ground. Rising temperatures could encourage the growth of trees on higher plains that were once far too cold. “But the consensus is that most of the effects of climate change will be negative,” said Reyer.
The majority of Germany should be covered by deciduous trees – beech and oak in particular. But there are almost no more natural forests left. Instead, what is growing is what was planted: in the north, mainly pines; in the south, spruce. But spruce could also be a big loser from climate change because it cannot handle drought and its shallow roots are easily damaged in storms. The tree is also at risk from pests, such as pine moths, which feed on its needles as caterpillar larvae.
Other insects become stronger as the temperature rises by a few degrees, with bark beetles’ reproductive cycle increasing to three or even four times a year (they currently have a maximum of two). New pests could be attracted by the warmer weather. Forest fires are also expected to increase, although it is still unknown whether climate change will lead to heavier storms in the south-west of Germany.
Some experts say mixed forests are important, comparing them to an equity portfolio that reduces the risk through mixture. Some are calling for the spread of species such as the Douglas fir or red oak, which do not grow naturally in Germany but can survive drought and pests. However, others swear by a “natural” forest in which only a region’s native plants grow.
Tina Baier, Süddeutsche Zeitung
France
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Greater flamingos in the Camargue. Photograph: FLPA/Rex Shutterstock
An excavator was busy in the Fangassier pond in Camargue, which had been drained for the duration of work to create a refuge where flamingos could stay safe from the foxes lurking around the old swamps.
Something had to be done: their old island nest is now under water.
The Camargue, a natural park on the Mediterranean coast in south-east France, is famed for numerous plant and animal species as well as its rice and salt marshes – but it is in danger. The sea will eventually end up covering much of a 6,500-hectare area of the park recently acquired by the French coastal protection agency in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône.
The group that owned the Salins du Midi salt marshes started selling them in 2008 because the rising water meant the coastal ponds were becoming harder and harder to operate, despite the use of electric pumps and embankments.
The new owners have given up fighting the waters head-on. “We estimate that 2,000 hectares will end up becoming salt marshes again, where bulls and horses traditionally roam in the region, whilst the lower parts will be submerged – although we don’t exactly know how far,” said Gaël Hemery, who helps look after the Camargue park.
Hemery looked over at a part of the seawall now reduced to almost nothing. Fifty years ago, 300 metres of beach stretched out in front of the wall. The sea has proved stronger. Martine Valo, Le Monde
Mediterranean Sea
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Mediterranean bream near Marseille in southern France. Photograph: Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty
The Mediterranean is a different sea to the one that lapped Europe’s shores 50 years ago. It’s two or three degrees warmer on average. The layer of warm water is deeper than before, and the period of the year during which the water stays warm is longer.
As a result, marine biologists say that as many as 700 species not detected in the sea before have arrived. All are tropical, and many have come in from the Red Sea via the Suez canal. It’s not just fish such as the cornetfish, but species of jellyfish and algae that are enjoying their new Mediterranean homes. The warmer waters are encouraging species of wrasse and parrotfish to move further north.
We have badly managed a resource believing it is everlasting - it isn’t
It is bad news for some types of coral that don’t like the heat, and that used to thrive below the warmer layer of water. Traditional Mediterranean fish populations have suffered as well.
We have badly managed a resource believing it is everlasting. It isn’t. The presence of traditional fishermen is a barometer of a sea’s health. A sea will be healthy while they’re at sea. They too are disappearing, and we should worry greatly.
