Placing the Mediterranean at the heart of the international climate change debate is more urgent than ever. The Mediterranean region is warming at a rate higher than the global average, with significant consequences for its natural resources, biodiversity, and social and economic stability.
With a global temperature increase limited to 1.5°C, it is projected that 18% of the Mediterranean population will experience water scarcity. Additionally, the sea level in this region has been rising since the last century at an average of 1.4 mm per year. The Mediterranean Sea is home to 7.5% of global marine biodiversity.
Meanwhile, the increase in drought events has become a pressing reality, as their frequency and duration threaten national economies and particularly urban societies.
In this context of regional warming, drought and water scarcity are increasingly interconnected. Often, drought can trigger or exacerbate water scarcity, while water scarcity can, in turn, worsen drought conditions.
At COP29 in Baku, the Italian Pavilion will host a side event on November 15th at 1:30 p.m., dedicated to the environmental and social vulnerabilities of the Mediterranean Basin. The event will also highlight Italian development cooperation initiatives aimed at conserving marine and terrestrial resources in the Eastern Mediterranean (Western Balkans) and implementing the necessary adaptation measures.
For Italian development cooperation, the Mediterranean is a strategic area, where the human tragedy of migration flows can be addressed with long-term cooperation policies. Such policies can potentially address the development-migration nexus by integrating migration dimensions into development cooperation policies and activities. In this context, the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) can serve as a pivotal player in tackling the challenges posed by an increasingly “agitated” Mediterranean.
Speakers at the panel will include Marco Rusconi, Director of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation; Grammenos Mastrojeni, Senior Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean; and Letizia Fischioni, Deputy Head of AICS Albania.