PRESS RELEASE No: 545/2021 Date: 21st July 2021 BUDGET SPEECH 2021 - Prof John Cortes MBE, Minister for Education & Culture, Environment, Sustainability & Climate Change, Heritage and Public Health. Note: Sections in Italics are included as additional information but were not read out in Parliament. Mr Speaker INTRODUCTION The world is in crisis. The Climate has changed in our lifetime, and this change is accelerating. Only this month we have seen record temperatures around the world, leading to deaths from heat in countries we’ve always considered to be cold, and torrential rains, flooding and death across western Europe. Parts of the Earth will in a few decades become uninhabitable through heat. There will be thousands of climate refugees heading north from the tropics. We will be on the front line of that wave, and of the effects of sea level rise. A two metre rise will render our airfield unusable, while a rise of 3 metres will flood all the low lying areas inhabited areas of Gibraltar, including Laguna, Glacis, Westside and the tower Town. This is no joke. Those of us who are parents or grandparents need to realise that this is the world – the Gibraltar – facing those young people and children who we love. Indeed, with all the many obstacles we have overcome through the centuries, including the pandemic we are still navigating, the effects of Climate Change are the Ministry of the Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change, Heritage, Education and Culture HM Government of Gibraltar • 1b Leanse Place, 50 Town Range • Gibraltar GX11 1AA t +350 20066491 f +350 20066706 e
[email protected] w www.gibraltar.gov.gi ones most likely to see the end of Gibraltar as we know it.