Climate Inferno Threatens to Turn Athens Into Outpost of Sahara

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(Bloomberg) — As fire-ravaged Athens braces for near-record temperatures this week, a longer-term ecological disaster threatens the cradle of western civilization: the Greek capital dangers turning right into a desert.

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Wildfires raged final week throughout the better Attica area that surrounds Athens, destroying properties and forcing residents and vacationers to hunt the security of close by seashores. Because the local weather warms, excessive warmth and fires have gotten extra frequent, depriving the olive groves and pine forests that encircle the capital of the time they should rejuvenate.

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“If there’s a new fireplace this yr, or subsequent yr, that for instance burns the Parnitha mountain, then desertification will instantly seem,” stated Efthymios Lekkas, professor of dynamic tectonic utilized geology and catastrophe administration on the Nationwide Kapodistrian College of Athens. 

Local weather change, triggered by fossil gas emissions, is boosting the depth and length of summer time warmth waves throughout the Northern Hemisphere, elevating issues that swathes of the planet might quickly develop into uninhabitable. Whereas the southward creep of the Sahara has lengthy spelled ecological catastrophe for international locations like Sudan and Chad, the desert’s northern edge is now threatening Europe. 

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Greece is among the many international locations in southern and southeastern Europe — together with Spain, Portugal, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania — which can be susceptible to desertification as temperatures enhance and rainfall dwindles, fueling wildfires. That development is forecast to proceed as greenhouse fuel emissions hold warming the planet.

The influence is extra excessive within the Mediterranean, an already semi-arid area that’s warming 20% sooner than the worldwide common, in keeping with the UN Surroundings Programme. Greece is especially susceptible to local weather change, with rainfall declining throughout the nation and rising seas rising the degrees of salt on its soil, a phenomenon that accelerates desertification.

Two main wildfires broke out final week to the southeast and northwest of Athens, whereas a 3rd hit an space 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of the capital. The fireplace in Devenoxoria alone destroyed over 9,500 hectares, burning timber and houses, in keeping with the Nationwide Observatory of Athens. 

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Wildfires have been a function throughout the area because the Eighties, however local weather change is turbo-charging the risk they pose, in keeping with Kimon Hadjibiros, emeritus professor on the Nationwide Technical College of Athens and a specialist in ecological points and environmental coverage.

In 2021, wildfires in Attica, within the southern Peloponnese area and on the island of Evia adopted a warmth wave with temperatures reaching as excessive as 46C, whereas in 2018 a fireplace close to to the capital left greater than 100 folks lifeless.

This week, the mercury is anticipated to climb even increased. Highs for the Greek mainland are forecast to achieve 47C (117F) by Wednesday. That might match the nation’s all time excessive set in Athens in 1977, and probably take a look at the European report of 48.8C set on the Italian island of Sicily two years in the past. 

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The federal government is interesting to different European leaders to ship extra jets and fireman to battle additional blazes.

“The laborious instances will not be over but,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated Thursday. 

Long run, the Greek premier is in search of to reallocate assets for reforestation and preventive measures in Attica. 

Over a 3rd of Greece’s territory is topic to excessive desertification threat, in keeping with the Ministry of Agriculture’s motion plan on desertification. Whereas intensive agriculture is among the many essential contributors, increased temperatures and decrease rainfall are accelerating soil erosion.

Within the quick time period, college professor Hadjibiros stated Greece ought to have a look at changing pine timber close to present residential neighborhoods with much less flammable alternate options. Additional out, local weather change have to be addressed by substituting fossil fuels with wind and photo voltaic vitality, he stated.

“What’s worrying is the frequency and depth of the fires linked to meteorological phenomena corresponding to warmth waves,” Hadjibiros stated. “It implies that yr after yr we’ll have worse and worse phenomena till areas like Attica will desertify.”

—With help from Eamon Akil Farhat.

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