Events

OCP Policy Center and the Istituto Affairi Internazionali (IAI), in partnership with Edison, OME and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, are co-organizing a daylong seminar on the topic of energy in the Mediterranean. 

The Mediterranean area represents a delicate ecosystem and it is highly susceptible to Climate Change variations induced by global warming. Heating that will record, in the near future, a rapid rise in sea level. This phenomenon, exacerbated by the increased frequency of extreme natural events, is proving to be critical for coastal ecosystems and the socio-economic regional system, which includes fishing industry, agriculture, forest management and/or the multiple residential, commercial and leisure activities that are located near the coasts of the various countries of the Mediterranean basin.

All climate scenarios of recent years confirm, in fact, by the middle of this century, that the Euro-Mediterranean region, will record the trend of an average 2°C (0.8 to 1.8°C on the sea surface), temperature rise, a rise in sea level from 6 to 12 cm (joint effect of the increase in temperature and salinity), a reduction in rainfall of up to 10% and an increase in the frequency of extreme events such as heat waves, torrential rains and cyclones.

The inevitable changes in climate will have to be dealt as a challenge for the economic, social, productive systems renovation and as an opportunity to accelerate the cooperation of the different sides of the Mediterranean: the North and South. Intensify public-private partnerships will represent the key to take initiatives, projects, adequate measures to external solicitations that will allow to safeguard the environment that is considered as “unique” natural non-replicable, and both commercial, industrial, agricultural activities, as well as the coastal profile that characterizes the entire Mediterranean basin.

The research and innovation will have to constitute the stimulus to accelerate the transformation towards new lower-carbon technologies, consolidating the existing ones which already provide significant levels of efficiency and environmental compatibility and which are the basis for realizing the transfer of technology aimed to launch the Mediterranean basin towards a complete de-carbonization.

The strengthening of the initiatives, considered “best practices”, already launched in the Mediterranean and that constitute and reinforce dialogue and the long tradition of cooperation between the countries in which it is facing, will have to drive politics, associations, academic and research worlds toward the goal to tie the different needs and cultures in an integrated and shared strategy that enhances the entire region, key to sustainable development.

 Agenda