Climate risks GDPs falling in North Africa and ME

North African and Middle Eastern countries are particularly vulnerable and their economies could be weakened by climate change, according to a report published by the EU-funded Euro-Mediterranean Forum of Economic Institutes of Sciences (FEMISE). “The economies of North Africa and the Middle East will be affected by climate change. Our preliminary estimates indicate that a 1?C increase in temperature causes a decrease in the per capita GDP of about 8% on average, with a range from -17% for Egypt to 0% for Turkey, Tunisia and some Mashreq countries. This decrease could even reach 14% if we do not introduce control measures to adapt to climate change,” says the recently published FEMISE study on the economic cost of climate change in the Middle East and North Africa. Declining water resources, land degradation and a rise in sea levels of a few centimetres are all direct consequences of rising temperatures. “In urban areas, temperature increases of 1 to 3? C could expose between 6 and 25 million people to the risk of coastal flooding,” say Nicolas Peridy from the University of Toulon-Var and Ahmed Ghoneim from Cairo University, the authors of this study. Ecosystems could also undergo changes. “These impacts are likely to affect economic activities with major effects on agriculture and tourism, following the significant drop in crop yields and increased salination of the land due to erosion and soil pollution by salt,” according to the report. The study predicts an increase of 2 C within 15 to 20 years and between 4 and 6.5 C by the end of the 21st century. A sharp drop in rainfall, estimated at 20%, will also hit the Maghreb and the Middle East