Climate Impacts: Mediterranean and North Africa

Dr. Peter Carter, Paul Beckwith and Regina Valdez discuss the ongoing impacts to areas around the Mediterranean and North Africa. This region is often referred to as MENA however impacts to Spain and Portugal are also discussed.

This video was recorded on May 5th, 2023, and published on May 29th, 2023.

Some of the topics discussed:

• MENA stands for Middle East and North Africa which covers a landmass area of over 11 million square kilometers. It is demographically one of the world’s younger regions whereas the West, or certain parts of Asia, is very much an aging population.
• How water scarcity is tremendous in this region and how it affects everything and everyone.
• How the Sahara Desert, basically is crossing the Mediterranean and impacting Europe, southern Spain, and Portugal and other parts of the Middle East.
• How it has made it more difficult for people to work outdoors, forcing the need to do more of the work at night when it’s a little bit cooler.
• How the nights aren’t cooling as much as they used to because of the very warm conditions of the Mediterranean oceans and how this is also leading to a phenomenon called ‘medicanes’ which are Mediterranean cyclones.
• How the warmer water around coastal regions are leading to more dangerous wet bulb temperatures.
• How many parts of these regions will essentially become uninhabitable as early as 2050.
• and much more . . .

Links

• MENA (wikipedia)

• Water Crisis in the MENA Region

• Wet-bulb Temperature

• Desertification - Spain

• Desertification - Portugal

• To Hot to Handle (CEF Video)

• 4 Factors Causing Middle Eastern Countries to Become Uninhabitable

• Hydropolitics

• U.N. Warns of Water Wars as 2 Billion People Lack Clean Water with Africa and Middle East Hardest Hit

• Medicanes (wikipedia)

• Ocean Cycles - El Niño and La Niña (CEF Video)

• Middle East countries face extreme heat risk, study finds

• IFAD in the Near East and North Africa Region

• Water in Crisis - Middle East

• Water doesn’t come from a tap

• A Review on Climate, Air Pollution, and Health in North Africa

• Incidence of malaria (per 1,000 population at risk) - Middle East & North Africa

Regular Panelists:

• Dr. Peter Carter - MD, Expert IPCC Reviewer and the director of the Climate Emergency Institute

• Paul Beckwith - Climate Systems Scientist. Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Paleoclimatology Laboratory as well as at Carleton University

• Regina Valdez - Program Director, Climate Reality Project, NYC. GreenFaith Fellow and LEED Green Associate

Video Production:

• Charles Gregoire – Climate Reality Leader, Electrical Engineer, Webmaster and IT prime for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum

• Heidi Brault - Climate Reality Leader, BA(Psychology), Library & Information Technician Diploma - Video production and website assistant - Organizer and convener, Metadata technician, COP28 Team Lead for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum.

Attributions:

Background Music:

• Title: Through the City II
• Author: Crowander
• Source: crowander.com

Image and Video:

• Image and Video Attributions