Places Most Threatened By Climate Change

Scientific studies are showing that the climate emergency is getting worse by the day. Despite the proliferation of skeptics whose arguments respond mainly to private economic interests, global warming and climate change are realities that have negative effects on the lives of the people of the planet.

For this reason, the 25th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP 25) was held in Madrid in December . It was a meeting in which representatives of all the countries of the world should strive to ensure that we all comply with the Paris Agreement.

This is a commitment that we must make. The house that we inhabit today, tomorrow our descendants will inhabit it, and what better way than to leave it in good condition.

Some of the symptoms of this climate emergency are manifested through extreme heat waves, forest fires, floods or droughts. There are also places that are more threatened by climate change than others and, precisely, in this article we want to talk about them.

1. Climate change in the Arctic Circle

Global warming is causing the ice sheet in the Arctic Ocean to be shrinking by leaps and bounds. The consequences of the melting of the pole causes the sea levels to rise (19 centimeters between 1901 and 2001) and the marine currents are altered. This alteration is not gratuitous, since it affects and modifies the climate of many regions.

In turn, the absence of an ice sheet that reflects the sun’s rays favors the warming of the Arctic Ocean water. This increase in seawater temperature leads to an acceleration of global warming.

Finally, as Serreze points out: “We have known for a long time that, while climate change takes hold, some of the most important changes will take place in the Arctic […] We hate to tell you that we already warned you, but we already know we warn you ”.

2. Amazon

The Amazon is the largest tropical forest region on the planet. The world’s largest reserve of animal and plant species is concentrated in its approximately 6.7 million km². This green mass of millions of plants helps control the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus slowing the rate of global warming.

The Amazon rainforest not only favorably influences the balance of the atmosphere, but also, through the contribution of fresh water (approximately 20% of the planet) to the Atlantic Ocean, it helps to control the hydrological cycle of the region. It contributes to the cooling of the Earth, prevents its erosion and recharges the groundwater.

Conserving this environment is vital to reduce the effects of climate change, since its disappearance would lead to a decrease in rainfall and an increase in temperatures. This would have as a consequence a prolongation of the dry seasons and, with it, a greater vulnerability to fires.

This is not speculation, it is already happening. The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has counted the sources of fires in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest during 2019 and they have detected that they have been 85% higher than those of the same period of 2018.

3. The coastlines

On the planet there are more than 450 dead zones on the coastlines. These territories are characterized by having little or no oxygen, which causes marine fauna and flora to leave the place or, in the worst case, die. The death of these regions is closely linked to human activity, as they are regions with a high concentration of agricultural and chemical fertilizers.

In the Gulf of Mexico, for example, up to 15,000 km² are already suffering from this problem. Recently, a case has become notorious in the Mar Menor lagoon, in Spain. This is the most important lagoon in the western Mediterranean and, despite repeated warnings, it has collapsed.

4. Islands of Oceania and climate change

Floods on many Pacific islands and continued periods of droughts adversely affect crops. This causes its inhabitants to be forced to move to other islands or to the impoverishment of their diet. A recent example is the case of the Carteret Islands in the South Pacific, which were forced to relocate to the island of Bougainville.

Many other islands are seriously threatened by the effects of global warming and, therefore, their leaders were the ones who demanded that firm agreements be reached at COP25. Some of these islands are Kiribati, the Maldives, Tuvalu, Marshall, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Salomon, and Vanautu.