Tonino Picula Highlights Croatia’s Vulnerability to Climate Change

November the 27th, 2019 – Global warming threatens the survival of both Croatian and European citizens and cultural heritage, warned Croatian MEP Tonino Picula.

”The most famous protected Croatian sites, such as the Old City of Dubrovnik, Diocletian’s Palace and the Cathedral of St. Jacob are at risk of sinking due to global warming,” Croatian MEP Tonino Picula warned during a plenary session in the European Parliament.

Speaking on the European Union’s response to extreme meteorological events and their impact on the protection of Europe’s urban areas and cultural heritage, Picula stressed that, according to publicly available data, sinking threatens as many as 37 places across the Mediterranean, including listed Croatian cities, and there are 42 sites at risk of erosion.

”It’s high time we declare the climate crisis for what it is and urgently adopt and implement measures to reverse global warming trends,” he said.

Specifically, according to international climate modelling results, the Mediterranean basin is designated as a climate “hot spot” with particularly pronounced effects of climate change.

According to a report by the European Environment Agency (EEA), Croatia is among the three European Union countries with the highest cumulative share of damage from extreme weather and climate events in relation to gross national product, which is a huge threat to the Croatian economy, which is unfortunately in a high percentage dependent on tourism and agriculture revenues, which account for up to a quarter of GDP. According to the EEA, damage from extreme climatic events which happened to/in Croatia amounted to about 2.25 billion euros from 1980 to 2013, or about 68 million euros annually.

The transition of European islands to renewable energy sources, whose pilot projects are funded by the European Commission’s Secretariat for the Islands, which includes ten Croatian islands, is a good example of what to do to slow global warming trends down and reverse them in the long term, Tonino Picula pointed out.

For Europe as a whole, but especially for Croatia, it is of utmost importance to reduce the acute vulnerability of the agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy and tourism sectors, since their success depends significantly on climatic conditions.

In order to facilitate and compensate for the transition to renewable energies for those most affected by the transition, the European Parliament proposed in its interim report on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 that a special fund of 4.8 billion euros be introduced. The aim of the fund would be to address the social, socio-economic and environmental impacts on workers and communities during the transition.

”In addition to cultural heritage, our citizens will be directly endangered, as up to a third of EU residents live along the coast, up to 50 kilometres from the coast. Priceless cultural heritage has resisted the historical challenges of hundreds and thousands of years, let’s not allow it to be destroyed by the climate change we ourselves have caused,” Tonino Picula concluded.

Make sure to follow our dedicated lifestyle and politics pages for much more.

 

Subscribe to our newsletter

the fields marked with * are required

Email: *
First name:
Last name:
Gender:	Male Female
Country:
Birthday:	[DD] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 [MM] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 [YYYY] 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Please don't insert text in the box below!