The Climate Change Crisis: a threat with multiple dimensions

The climate change crisis caused by the global warming that had worsened over the last years is now causing a serious problem, in particular to the European countries. To make it clear, this year has been the worst since 500 years in what concerns climate change, since dehydration and hot temperature had reached their peak and this had detrimental effects on the economic and agricultural levels. It is worth noting that the recorded levels of dehydration and heat are unprecedented to the point where the temperature reached 45 degrees Celsius in many European countries such as France, Spain and Portugal. Such tremendous change had threatening consequences on biodiversity, the ecosystem and nature since that nearly 7400 hectares of forests in south-east of France have been burnt down by the excessive heat. This is expected to worsen during the month of August.

Fires have also attacked the forests of Greece, Portugal and Spain and what makes things more difficult is the fact that rain fall has greatly weakened during the last 3 months. Consequently, the current dehydration crisis is getting more complex given that the recent great rise in temperature calls for greater water consumption notably for the sake of agriculture, the agricultural production and drinking waters for the national populations. For example, in addition to fires, thousands of hectares could be destroyed due to the lack of water supply such as maize hectares in Romania. Therefore, there are certainly agricultural products that need bigger water supply than other like maize that could be easily ruined that way.

Agricultural production has also become harder currently given that fertilizers exports have been substantially cut since the Ukrainian war and the economic sanctions imposed on Russia that greatly reduced their imports. This excessive heat and lack of water supply contributed to make soils less humid form east to the west of Europe. Both the increase of demand of pure water and the reduction of agricultural production led to a surge in the latter’s prices, aggravated of course by the repercussions caused by the Ukrainian war. The crisis had reached a point where even certain French communes don’t have access to pure water for mere personal consumption. However, international solidarity have been shown during the outbreak of forests’ fires where other European countries sent help to the other countries in need, meaning that all the countries admit the presence of a crisis that needs a consensual decision and rapid actions to prevent further distresses or inconvenience.

Tags: #climatechange #foodcrisis #threat

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