The Mediterranean is one of the hotspots of the planet. Temperatures are rising 20% faster than the global average. Alerts are multiplying in the air, with increasingly frequent heat waves, such as at sea: last summer, an unusual maritime heat wave was recorded in the western part of the basin. More broadly, the entire Mediterranean arc is subject to the direct and indirect effects of climate change.
Plan bleu, one of the regional activity centers of the Mediterranean Action Plan, is currently working on a major prospective project of all possible scenarios by 2050 (MED2050) for this complex and fragile area: questions water, waste management, energy, tourism, biodiversity… These themes will be addressed this week during the Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development (MCSD), organized for the first time in France. Guillaume Sainteny, the president of Plan bleu, outlines the issues.
Marseille is hosting the 20th meeting of the Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development from June 14 to 16. What can we expect?
Guillaume Sainteny The MCSD is a forum for dialogue between the countries of the southern and northern shores, which have slightly different environmental and sustainable development concerns, but also between civil society and States. This meeting counts on several levels. First of all, it’s the first post-Covid. Then, it represents a key step towards the United Nations Conference on the Ocean (Unoc) which will take place in Nice in 2025. Finally, it is the first part organized in France.
France remains the first economic power in the area, the first GDP, the first national navy, the first diplomatic apparatus and has a history with the Mediterranean basin – a very French-speaking area – since it maintains friendly relations with almost -all of the countries that make it up. It therefore has an obvious leadership role to play, and not just in environmental terms. Its record, so far, is not negative: it still does much more than other countries. We will have to see what it announces, whether at the level of the national territory or concerning international initiatives.
The strategy around the basin, in force since 2016, must end in 2025. Given the ecological emergency, should it be revised now?
No. To draft a strategy, it is necessary to agree all the member countries, that is to say 22 parties which do not all have the same hierarchies, even if the environmental problems exist everywhere. Israel, for example, places great emphasis on the issue of water; in Lebanon, they are obsessed with waste, etc. Not everyone spontaneously gives the same level of importance to subjects. It takes a lot of negotiation, and that’s normal when there are so many countries with very different political regimes, economies and legal systems.
It is rather essential to give long-term signals. The MCSD issues opinions, recommendations, monitors the proper application of the current strategy. However, where progress can be made, it is on the application of certain protocols ratified – or not – by the countries. There are good students, others less so.
Which ?
Greece has not ratified several protocols, including a very important one on coastal zone management. But if there is one country that should do it, it’s it, when you see its linear coastline… Tunisia ratified it in December – it’s the latest example. The processes lengthen from one country to another depending on the methods of transposition into domestic law, or the ratification of Parliament, which sometimes has other priorities… And then there are countries in which the State of law is less developed or applied than in France, which can therefore ratify a protocol without really applying it…
For example ?
In the biodiversity protocol, an appendix establishes a list of species that must be protected at Mediterranean level. There are 157: we can say that we need more. There too, it is necessary to have the agreement of the States. Certain species are more or less abundant depending on the region, can be hunted in one country and not in another, etc. In any case, the list progresses steadily. On the other hand, we have a rather average visibility on the way in which it is respected in practice by certain countries.
This raises questions about the governance of this space, with differences in development and interests between the countries of the north and those of the south and east of the Mediterranean basin. How can we put everyone on the same path?
When the Blue Plan was created, in the second half of the 1970s, one could not speak of an environment without development. This subject remains, even today, the most important for the countries of the South, even if they try to articulate the two.
We cannot address these nations by saying: “You are bad students when it comes to the environment.” They need to be shown how some form of environmental protection can help them grow greener. Show them, for example, that the integrated management of coastal zones does not slow down economic development, but that it organizes it differently, with development further inland, thought out in an intersectoral way.
You also have to adapt to local situations. Lebanon was a country with which we worked fairly well, but the national situation is now slowing down cooperation. In this region which has always been full of tensions, the question of the environment adds new difficulties. These revolve around freshwater resources, subsoil, the decline in food self-sufficiency… The two main lessons to be learned of the first MedECC reporta regional IPCC (which brings together 700 scientists from countries bordering the Mediterranean) hosted by Plan Bleu, are that climate change is happening faster in the Mediterranean than elsewhere, and that it is faster in the eastern part than in the southern part. western.
Precisely, in less than twenty years, approximately 250 million people could be considered “water poor” around the Mediterranean basin. How to adapt?
There are many possibilities for adaptation. It is obviously necessary to replace crops that require too much water. The problem also arises in France. I am very struck by the persistence of maize cultivation in our territory, whereas the countries of North Africa have long since replaced it with sorghum – Italy and Spain are beginning to do so. Another example: Israel conducts a quite remarkable water policy, both in their use of wastewater and in their taxation.
The Mediterranean remains a hot spot at different levels: in terms of fresh water, biodiversity (with an absolutely exceptional diversity compared to other places in the world, since there are more plant species in the department of the Alpes- Maritimes than in the whole of Great Britain), climate change, waste, migration. It is also a hotspot geopolitics with a complex character, because it is not unified from a political and legal point of view.
It is also a vital area for the economy of many countries. Do you feel an equivalent ecological awareness throughout the basin?
Undoubtedly, environmental issues are moving up the agenda of public priorities in all countries, but at unequal speeds and on different topics: waste, water, sustainable tourism – which remains the leading economic sector in the Mediterranean. .
All the scenarios for mitigating and adapting to climate change evoke the need for sobriety. Is this an easy message to convey to all the countries of the Mediterranean arc?
This problem is more complex than one might think: I would even say that the countries on the southern shore often turn out to be more sober than the countries of the north. The development of material consumption since the post-war period is less significant in southern countries, which still rely heavily on the durability of objects. Water scarcity is also a subject that they have in mind. The organization around this resource can still be improved, but communities have developed joint management systems, etc.
However, the countries of the South are lagging behind in public subsidies for fossil fuels, which are still very present in Egypt, Algeria or Libya, whereas they have greatly diminished in the countries of the North. This is a very sensitive subject on which we are trying to move forward. On energy, the development of offshore wind still poses a big problem.
For what ?
We are going too fast. Everyone says that floating wind turbines do less damage: it hasn’t been proven at all. You have to attach the buoys, at the bottom, with chains. When they are tense in the event of a storm, very well, but in dead calm, they scrape the bottom like a trawl. However, this is a poorly known environment. We do not know how rich it is in terms of biodiversity. How then can real impact studies be carried out? Moreover, with these wind turbines, we are going to change the maritime landscape for the first time. This is quite a significant conceptual leap.