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Euronews Perspectives: Debate and analysis on the major issues in Europe with our team from Euronews' affiliates across Central and Eastern Europe
READ MORE : https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/03/euronews-perspectives-debate-and-analysis-on-global-warming-and-climate-change
READ MORE : https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/03/euronews-perspectives-debate-and-analysis-on-global-warming-and-climate-change
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00:00 The chance to secure a livable future for everyone on Earth is slipping away.
00:12 This is an alarming message from the United Nations latest report on climate change.
00:18 Scientists believe that the deadly hair waves, floods, hurricanes and other weather extremes
00:22 that are already happening now will become even more severe in the future if humanity
00:27 does not act swiftly.
00:28 This is Yerunas, Georgia, and it is climate change and its dire consequences we're talking
00:32 about today with our colleagues from France, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Serbia and Georgia.
00:39 And here we are joined by our colleagues Jeremy Wilkes from France Lyon, Marijan Yon from
00:45 Romania, George Karamfilo from Bulgaria, Franco Ergo from Yerunas, Albania, Bojan Brkić from
00:52 Serbia and David Kekenadze from our Tbilisi studio.
00:56 Dear colleagues, thank you so much for joining us today.
01:00 Until we start our conversation with our colleagues, I want to present a story from Romania about
01:07 the climate change.
01:13 A heat wave of up to 40 degrees Celsius hit Romania in the last several days and it followed
01:19 severe floods in a number of regions.
01:22 Climate change has a serious socioeconomic impact on the country and there is fault especially
01:27 in the agricultural sector.
01:29 Yerunas, Romania reports.
01:37 Romania is experiencing full climate change effects, which caused floods in the urban
01:42 areas of Brașov, Iași and several other regions in the south of the country.
01:49 Four hundred and fifty passengers were left stranded in two trains in Suceava County because
01:54 the tracks were covered by water and trees.
02:01 In just 24 hours, it rained as much as in the whole month of June.
02:05 Even the Transfagarasan Road, which crosses the Carpathians, was blocked by silt from
02:10 the mountain slopes.
02:12 Meteorologists issued 18 bad weather warnings in a single day.
02:17 After the heavy rains, a heat wave hit Romania, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.
02:22 However, in the urban areas, due to the sun heating the asphalt, concrete and buildings,
02:28 the temperatures felt were even higher and the thermal discomfort increased.
02:32 The climate change that we are already feeling is amplifying and its impacts are becoming
02:40 more and more serious.
02:47 Unfortunately, this could lead us to unmanaged areas if we continue to increase emissions
02:56 at the current rate and if we do not reduce emissions.
02:58 Seaside tourists have experienced an unusual phenomenon.
03:01 Because of temperature differences between night and day, fog formed over the water.
03:06 We are talking about a spectacular phenomenon that does not happen very often at the seaside.
03:12 And what is even more unusual is the image of the sea water.
03:18 As you can see, the visibility is extremely low and tourists who are in the water are
03:24 covered by a layer of fog.
03:27 Another effect of climate change is severe drought, which affects the agricultural sector.
03:32 In Moldova, for example, farmers faced high losses of wheat crops in recent years.
03:38 To help them, specialists at the University of Life Sciences in Iasi are trying to find
03:43 a wheat variety suitable for the area.
03:46 The results, at least visually, are very promising.
03:50 There are biological forms that are tolerant to climate stress and phytopathogenic stress.
04:01 Climate change is causing desertification in the long run.
04:05 More than a third of the country's arable land is at risk.
04:08 In the region of Oltenia alone, more than 800,000 hectares will be affected.
04:17 Now Marjan Ion is joining us from Romania and we will discuss this story with her.
04:23 Marjan, 88% of Romanians think that climate change has an impact on their everyday lives.
04:31 Could you please tell us how Romanians feel about climate change and what are their perceptions
04:36 about the crisis?
04:38 Hello, Nuka, hello everybody.
04:44 You have seen the images and this is how the situation looks right now.
04:50 This is a country that used to have a normal temperate climate, that means four regular
04:56 seasons.
04:57 The reality right now is that we have more like a hot season and a cold season.
05:03 The situation is such that we also have extreme weather episodes and we have them more often
05:12 than ever.
05:14 People can witness these episodes, they can feel the consequences.
05:20 The changes are happening really fast.
05:22 That means during a person's lifetime you can witness and feel these changes.
05:30 This might be a piece of good news because witnessing all these changes people really
05:37 understand the importance of climate change and the importance of tackling this issue.
05:43 There were different local surveys done here and they showed that, for instance, the Romanians
05:52 started to believe recently, starting last year, that climate change has to do with human
06:01 actions.
06:02 They are triggered and emphasized by what we do every day.
06:08 For instance, there is a recent research made by InScope Institute which shows that right
06:15 now 70% of the Romanians believe that economic activity is really impacting the climate.
06:26 More than that, 79.5% of the Romanians believe that this country's climate has changed dramatically
06:35 in the last 30 years.
06:38 The youngsters are really concerned here about the climate change.
06:43 Even when they go out searching for a job, they look for companies that are environmentally
06:49 friendly and they have policies to tackle climate change and stop pollution.
06:57 Also you can see the public concern in the sales of the electric cars because there are
07:06 now in the roads of Romania like 10 times more electric cars than there were three years
07:12 ago.
07:13 Also, to add some salt and pepper to the end of this transmission, if you go on Google
07:18 search for Romania, you will find that on the top of the searches there are a lot of
07:27 issues like what is climate change, how do I stop pollution and so on.
07:33 Thank you, Marijane, so much.
07:36 Romania is also heavily affected by climate change as the summer has warmed by 1.5 to
07:42 2 degrees Celsius in the country and projected trends are not also hope-giving.
07:48 Thank you.
08:09 Thank you.
08:24 Thank you.
08:53 Thank you.
09:02 Thank you.
09:20 Thank you.
09:42 Thank you.
10:04 And now Georgi Garanfilov will join us from Euronews Bulgaria.
10:08 Georgi, scientists predict different scenarios of climate change effect on Bulgaria.
10:14 Could you tell us what they predict for the country and how the state is coping with them?
10:21 Hello.
10:22 To be honest, the predictions of the scientists about Bulgaria are already happening.
10:27 The geographical position of our country has always been linked with continental climate,
10:32 which means cold winter with a lot of snow and after that very hot summer.
10:37 Now we have a mild winter.
10:39 After that, a distinguished raining season, which is about May and June.
10:43 There are a lot of floods in this raining season because the amount of water that falls
10:48 is something that we have never seen in the recent years.
10:51 After that, there is drought and the extreme heat that we're seeing right now.
10:55 We see temperatures from about 40 to 45 degrees Celsius, which usually are on the south-east
11:03 part of the country.
11:04 Now there are a lot more spaces and a lot more cities which are not prepared for such
11:10 occasions.
11:11 So, in those cities where the heat is extremely heavy, there are logistics created so water
11:19 should be supplied to the public.
11:23 Of course, there are some cases in which the state or the municipalities fail in these
11:28 attempts.
11:29 We have cases in which people do not receive bottled water simply because the mayor of
11:34 the city is on break, which as we know is not something that we should see happening.
11:41 What is important, however, is that the climate change is obvious for everybody in Bulgaria.
11:46 The heat is really extreme and also just yesterday we had a very strong thunderstorm with very
11:52 heavy wind, which will be followed by again a season of a series of days with heat and
12:00 after that thunderstorms again.
12:02 So we all see that, but the problem is that we do not have the necessary education for
12:08 the people to realize that this is a result of climate change.
12:12 We're doing packages every day showing the people the severe heat and asking them about
12:17 their opinion.
12:18 They are not happy about it, but what we see is that they do not understand the reasons
12:23 behind it.
12:24 So this is something that the state should really do more about.
12:30 Also I should focus on the fluids because the rivers are overflowing rapidly.
12:35 We saw very severe floods last year, which destroyed hundreds of houses.
12:40 This year it happened again.
12:41 The rivers are very dirty.
12:43 They have not been cleaned for years and when the rain falls, the massive rain falls, I
12:48 mean, they overflow very easily and that's why the fluids are so severe and that's why
12:53 people are left without their homes for days, for weeks and sometimes for months.
12:58 So this is also something the state should focus on, but mainly the education because
13:03 when we talk about climate change and when we talk about the temperatures here in Bulgaria,
13:07 we never say what are the reasons behind it and this is something that we should really
13:11 try to work better on.
13:14 Thank you, Georgi, so much.
13:16 And my next question goes to Jeremy Wilkes, who is joining us from France.
13:20 He is a science journalist.
13:23 So Jeremy, what we have seen and what we have heard is that the impacts of climate change
13:28 are global in scape and unprecedented in scale.
13:33 What are the emerging effects of climate change the humanity is facing now?
13:41 I think you can already hear from our correspondents there that everybody in Europe is very much
13:46 aware of the effects of climate change where they live, but there are actually emerging
13:50 effects in areas that people don't visit very often.
13:53 For example, the cryosphere, so the icy areas of the planet.
13:58 There if we take the example of the European Alps, there last year the European Alps lost
14:04 the equivalent of a block of ice five square kilometres in size, a huge amount of ice that
14:09 disappeared because of the heat waves and the lack of snow precipitation during the
14:14 winter time.
14:16 The same thing seems to be happening again this year.
14:18 Swiss glaciologists are saying goodbye to glaciers in parts of the country, saving samples
14:24 in the freezer if they can.
14:26 If we go to Antarctica, there in June, that continent around the edge is sea ice.
14:34 Last month we were seriously missing a lot of sea ice.
14:37 There were 2.3 million square kilometres less sea ice than average for the time of year,
14:43 17% below average.
14:44 So really rather unprecedented.
14:47 And in Greenland, there the melt is ongoing.
14:50 We had rain there for the first time on the peak of the Greenland ice sheet a couple of
14:54 years ago, but we continue to have very heavy rain, which is accelerating the melt, which
14:59 is contributing to sea level rise.
15:01 And of course the meltwater goes down into the cracks in Greenland and it continues to
15:06 kind of destabilise the ice sheet.
15:08 The other big trend that we've seen is the way that the oceans are warming up.
15:12 Now the oceans absorb about 90% of the excess heat in the atmosphere because of greenhouse
15:17 gases and we've seen an increasing number of marine heatwaves.
15:22 The Mediterranean suffered marine heatwaves last year and the same is happening again
15:25 this year.
15:26 But also for the first time we've seen a major marine heatwave across the North East Atlantic,
15:32 across the coast of the UK and Ireland, all the way down to the Canaries.
15:37 And that has a long-term impact on the species that live there because the temperatures are
15:41 up to five degrees above average for the time of year and the species there won't be able
15:46 to reproduce necessarily in the same way.
15:48 Their habitats might be damaged and there'll be long-term effects from those unprecedented
15:54 changes that we see going on in these areas that I say that most of us don't visit very
15:58 often but climate change is hitting them hard too.
16:02 That sounds very alarming, Jeremy.
16:04 Thank you so much.
16:05 And Albania is one of the most affected countries in Europe by climate change.
16:10 Temperature rise there is more than average.
16:13 Now let's see what are the major effects of the climate change on the country and then
16:17 we will come back with Franco Egro who is joining us from Tirana.
16:25 Albania is one of the most affected countries in the region by climate change.
16:31 Experts at the Institute of Geosciences state that the consequences of global warming are
16:35 becoming increasingly evident.
16:39 According to our monitoring, we have observed a decrease in rainfall by 13% and if we consider
16:46 the number of rainy days, there is a decrease of 18% compared to the 30-year average.
16:54 The effects are perceived more in our country because while the global average temperature
17:00 increase is 1.1 degrees, it is 2 degrees here making us more vulnerable to extreme weather
17:08 events resulting from these climate changes.
17:14 Climate change is causing negative consequences in several areas.
17:18 Agriculture is the most affected sector due to extreme weather events.
17:22 Fwat, a farmer from Korca, a city in southeastern Albania, expresses uncertainty about crop
17:28 cultivation.
17:31 We are experiencing climate change.
17:34 Seasons are changing from year to year.
17:36 Damages are significant.
17:38 Storms, hail storms and floods last year completely destroyed 44 hectares of my wheat crops.
17:45 It is becoming more difficult.
17:47 We are no longer certain about the seasons and the crops we can cultivate to adapt to
17:52 the conditions.
17:55 In the past two years, Albania has increased investments in early prediction of extreme
17:59 events.
18:01 By giving it more attention, we have managed to make earlier predictions for these phenomena
18:08 and take timely measures to minimize damages and their consequences.
18:14 Erosion another phenomenon of climate change is posing a threat to Albanian land.
18:18 According to a recent World Bank report, some 20% of the land in Albania is at high risk
18:23 of erosion.
18:27 And Franco Egro is joining us from Tirana.
18:31 Franco in this story we heard that the temperature rises in Albania more than average.
18:38 What makes your country so climate vulnerable?
18:44 A very warm greeting Nuka from a very hot Tirana.
18:48 As it is known, Albania is a small country where the main economy is services, some industry
18:55 and agriculture.
18:56 There are many challenges in addressing the climate changes risks.
19:00 Actually, the main problems are heavy floods and landslides.
19:05 The weather is changing, bringing an increase in temperatures, extreme weather, floods,
19:11 draft waves, rainfalls, etc.
19:15 According to the World Bank report of 2021, the coastal areas where the majority of population
19:22 is located is highly vulnerable.
19:24 The agriculture, energy sector and water resources are particularly at risk.
19:30 Albania is also vulnerable to fluctuations in precipitation with very negative implications
19:37 for countries hydropower supply.
19:40 I should note Nuka that Albania is severely hit by coastal erosion.
19:45 Almost a third of Albania's 427-kilometer coastline is being eroded by violent waves.
19:54 And this process is accelerating at an alarming speed due to climate-induced storm surges
20:01 and rising sea levels.
20:05 In its attempts to fulfill its EU obligations, in June last year, the Albanian authorities
20:11 committed to decreasing total emissions by 21% by 2030 compared to the baseline through
20:20 improvement in energy efficiency in transport and residential units and increase in the
20:27 use of renewable energy and the penetration of natural gas.
20:32 Albania was recently in the news, and I'm sure you have heard about it, because of the
20:36 Vjosa, a river in the south of the country.
20:40 It is one of the last wild rivers of Europe and was declared a national park by the Albanian
20:46 government, becoming the very first wild river national park in Europe.
20:52 Nonetheless, Nuka, apart from this reality, if you have not decided yet where to spend
20:57 your summer holidays, I suggest to you to come to Albania, as it is cooler along the
21:02 beaches and as the unprecedented wave of foreign tourists have confirmed so far, they're having
21:09 a great time.
21:11 Thank you, Franco.
21:12 Thank you for the invitation.
21:13 It's a really great idea.
21:16 Climate alarms are becoming more and more frequent in Serbia.
21:19 Extreme weather is becoming more recent in the country lately, and the impact of climate
21:24 change is alarmingly evident, leaving farmers in a state of uncertainty and dispear.
21:31 Eronews Serbia is reporting.
21:54 In the past month, corn and soy were harvested here.
22:09 Then there were heavy rains, a lake was formed, and the crops were destroyed.
22:14 And that's not the end of the troubles of agricultural producers.
22:17 After the flood, there is a drought.
22:19 I'm starting to lose my will.
22:24 I've been working the land, I enjoy it, I love it, we hang out, we produce something, we produce it with our own hands.
22:30 We feed our village and our family.
22:32 But when it all comes together, believe me, it's going to be a headache. I'm going to have a hard time.
22:39 For example, in the past ten years, we've had three heat waves during the year.
22:54 Now we have five.
22:55 Then the amount of 50 liters per square meter, which was mainly reserved for the whole of June or July,
23:02 now on average falls by 12 hours.
23:05 You have to know exactly what you're doing, you're going to have some money.
23:09 At that time, the prices were the same, of course, they were increasing or decreasing by several percent.
23:12 It was the same with the floods.
23:14 I've been sowing corn all year round.
23:17 I have a seedling, when you sow a beautiful wheat, soy, corn, I don't know, I'm not a big man anymore.
23:22 I'm trying all the possible combinations, because nothing is safe anymore.
23:25 And it seems that no agriculture will go well.
23:29 I'm going to sell my land to the Cheney family.
23:35 I didn't want to sell the land, I wanted to take the land for a percentage.
23:39 I had money, but then I didn't see it.
23:41 I don't give him money.
23:44 And Bojan Perkić from Euronews Serbia is here with us.
23:47 Bojan, we have seen how climate change is affecting agriculture and not only agriculture.
23:53 In Serbia, what are the forces of your country to adapt to the new reality?
24:00 There's a very vigorous debate in Serbia about what should we do in order to survive all these extreme weather conditions.
24:11 Those conditions are similar to what all of my colleagues have previously described.
24:16 We had a very warm winter, then heavy snow at the end of April, which damaged the fruit.
24:23 And then a heat wave, which is now interrupted by monstrous electric storms and hail.
24:31 So, last year, when we had excessive drought and a lot of bodies of water dried out,
24:39 the debate started about are we doing enough to mitigate the effects of all these extreme weather conditions.
24:49 Are we preserving enough of drinking water?
24:52 Do we care for our rivers and so on?
24:56 In May and June, there were heavy rains in Serbia.
25:02 And in more than 130 places around the country, there were flash floods, which destroyed homes and crops.
25:10 And it turned out that the local communities were not cleaning the riverbeds.
25:15 So, are we cleaning the riverbeds?
25:18 Well, the answer is almost universally negative.
25:22 We are not cleaning the rivers.
25:24 We are not saving drinking water in reservoirs sufficiently.
25:31 In agricultural sector, there were some serious donations or grants from the European Union for irrigation.
25:42 And they are slowly being implemented, but all too slowly.
25:47 The anti-hail nets have not been installed in most of the agricultural land.
25:53 So, there's a lot to do.
25:56 The action is quite sluggish, but the good news is that there is a very vigorous debate.
26:02 There is awareness of the people that something should be done, because whatever the causes of the global warming,
26:09 and of course, like in all the other issues, the Serbs are divided in their opinion as to what causes the global warming.
26:16 But they all admit that it's coming and the severe weather is coming and that something should be done.
26:23 And they are demanding more and more from the government to take more decisive and quicker action.
26:28 And this is the good news.
26:30 Edoard Bojan Brkić from Serbia and now in Georgia.
26:35 In Georgia, glaciers are melting and retreating.
26:38 The highest peaks of Caucasus may never look the same again as years ago.
26:43 Specialists fear that consequences of climate change will be more drastic in upcoming years.
26:50 Georgia, Svaneti
26:55 This is Georgia, Svaneti, home to Škara, the highest peak of the Caucasus.
27:01 Previously, surrounding mountains used to be covered with snow all year round.
27:06 Now, locals say nature is changing in front of their eyes.
27:10 Glaciers are melting and retreating.
27:12 Sometimes, they split or disappear completely.
27:18 Those narrow paths lead to one of them, Čala, the glacier.
27:23 Mountain climber and guide Mišam Čedljani has been here many times during his 20-year career.
27:29 Debris that you can see here was left by the retreating glacier.
27:35 When ice melts, it leaves certain types of rocks.
27:38 We call it moraine.
27:39 Long time has passed since the area was glaciated.
27:42 Here now you can find the grass and trees.
27:44 But you can still tell that the glacier used to cover this area before.
27:48 According to studies, this glacier is retreating by 20 meters annually.
27:56 Average retreat rate for other glaciers on the Caucasus is 10 to 15 meters annually.
28:10 Šalva Guledani and his wife Nargiz Nigurian have spent their whole lives here.
28:15 They say that the environment is changing.
28:18 Soil is less fertile now and mountain springs have stopped flowing.
28:22 Lots of springs are lost now.
28:27 One of them was Palo Spring.
28:29 Its water was ice cold.
28:30 When pouring into the cup, it would form icicles.
28:33 Now we have made an artificial channel and that's where we get our water.
28:37 But the main natural springs supplying this village are now gone.
28:41 Scientists believe, unless we take drastic action,
28:47 all the mountain glaciers might be gone by 2100.
28:51 According to the latest studies, from 1960 to 2016 glaciers have lost 600 million gigatons of ice.
29:02 To make it easier to visualize, this amount of ice, for example, would cover Chile with a 15 meter high ice.
29:09 This is huge.
29:10 Back to Svaneti, they fear that in upcoming decades consequences of climate change will become more drastic.
29:18 And their grandchildren might never again see the glacier in the glorious way the world knows it today.
29:27 One of the authors of this package is joining us from our BBC studio, David Kekennaze.
29:34 David, we've seen very sad pictures and I want to ask you, is this process irreversible
29:41 and are there any solutions that can be applied to slow down it?
29:47 Well, climate change is a really multifaceted problem and that makes it much more challenging to solve.
29:55 There are solutions, but it might not be what you think it is.
29:58 Let me start by the first part of your question, whether the process is reversible, the ice melt.
30:04 What is certain is that we can indeed slow down the process.
30:09 But slowing down the process will be a big deal.
30:12 It's an all small feat and it will be a great accomplishment.
30:15 When we talk about climate change, what it all comes down to is reducing global emissions,
30:23 greenhouse gas emissions, the gases that trap heat in our atmosphere and which makes the planet warmer.
30:30 Personally, for me, the huge obstacle and problem is that climate change knows no borders.
30:36 For example, you have the glacier melting in Georgia, but not necessarily because of the emissions by Georgia,
30:43 but rather the worldwide emissions.
30:46 So you cannot solve this problem single-handedly.
30:49 This requires, I would say, the unprecedented coordination of a global scale.
30:54 And this situation creates a case when you have a problem here locally, but you can only solve it with a global approach.
31:03 To put it simply, the big goal and the solution itself is to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
31:11 And according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the limiting global warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius
31:20 can save us from the most severe consequences of climate change.
31:24 And we shouldn't underestimate how big of a difference this can make.
31:30 We are talking about possibly saving trillions of dollars,
31:34 as well as it will give us all kinds of benefits when it comes to welfare or health, etc.
31:41 So I mentioned that solving the climate change requires a global approach, right?
31:47 But what does this exactly mean?
31:49 This means, for example, reducing emissions and moving to more renewable sources of energy.
31:54 This means protecting biodiversity and natural landscapes, as those are areas which can store a lot of carbon.
32:02 It also means moving to a more circular or greener economy.
32:06 It means switching to more sustainable farming and food production.
32:11 It means building more efficiently.
32:13 And we need to apply all of those little solutions everywhere and at every place.
32:20 And if we do this, NUCCA, yes, I believe that there is potential to save millions of people.
32:26 There is potential to prevent lots of suffering in the world and also save some of the glaciers.
32:32 So I think it's worth the effort.
32:35 That's very hope-giving, David. Thank you so much.
32:38 And scientists also say that there is still a window of opportunity for a more livable and sustainable future.
32:45 So let us fight for that.
32:47 This is your New Georgia. Thank you for watching.
32:51 [Music]