sEA lEVel riSE A CRUCIAL CHALLENGE FOR THE FUTURE OF CITIES AND COMMUNITIES, ECOSYSTEMS, AND THE HERITAGE, IN OUR WORLD UPSET BY THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK 46 Economy- wide effects of 136 Can the Dutch save Published by coastal flooding due to sea level the world from the danger rise: a multi - model simultaneous of rising sea levels? cHAPTER treatment of mitigation, adaptation and residual impacts 142 Climate change one to raise costs for 58 Global and European US muni bond issuers 6 Climate Change and sea-level rise Sea Level Rise: will be 144 Floods and coal clashes COVID-19 a game-changer? 64 Early Last Interglacial ocean spotlight climate threat warming drove substantial to financial sector 10 Sea Level Rise: Causes, ice mass loss from Antarctica Institute of European Democrats Impacts, and Policies 146 leaving is no longer 4 Rue de l’Industrie - 1000 Brussels - Belgium 72 Ocean Risk and the optional +32.2.2130010 - [email protected] 14 VENICE’S CASE: A HISTORIC ICON Insurance Industry InstituteofEuropeanDemocrats AND CLIMATE CHANGE’S DESIGNATED 150 the sea, lapping @IED_IDE VICTIM; THE CITY’S EXEMPLARY 104 How Cities are Using at the front door www.iedonline.eu HISTORY POINTS THE WORLD TOWARDS Architecture MORE EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS to Combat Flooding 18 Urban Heritage & Climate Resilience cHAPTER 157 ApPENDIx With the financial support of the European Parliament. Sole liability rests with the author ThrEE and the European Parliament cHAPTER is nor responsible for any use that may be made of the 112 Half of the world’s beaches information contained therein. two could disappear by the end of the century, study finds Project Coordinator 24 IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel Elena Giacomin on Climate Change: Special Report 115 2050 Climate Editing on the Ocean and Cryosphere Change City Index Andrea Alicandro in a Changing Climate 2019 126 Seas Threaten 80 Airports Graphic Design 33 Climate Change: Around The World Riccardo Bizziccari Global Sea Level 130 Sea level rise accelerating ISBN 978-2-9602546-0-0 38 Mediterranean UNESCO along US coastline, World Heritage at risk from scientists warn coastal flooding and erosion due to sea-level rise 132 Climate change: can the insurance industry afford the rising flood risk? cHAPTER one thinks otherwise. According to international surveys, very few per- the leakage and transmission – and possible adaptation to hu- ceived the risk of global viral pandemics, but 68% of the people mans – of viruses ‘imprisoned’ in glaciers formed millennia ago, Climate Change and interviewed considered Climate Change a ‘major global threat’ or in the vast territories where permafrost will inevitably thaw.3 (with 20% considering it ‘a minor threat’; for a total of 88%).1 Fiction literature and cinematography have been in charge Sea Level Rise: will be This leads us to think that the post-COVID-19 period will bring of anticipating some of these scenarios for some time. It’s inter- greater attention to the need to face global threats which un- esting to see that the disaster movie Outbreak (1995, with Dustin til recently were indeed considered ‘distant’. In fact, they have Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, Rene Russo, Donald Sutherland, Mor- COVID-19 a game-changer? proven very close to our real, current and daily life, and not only gan Freeman) doesn’t open with apocalyptic imagery but with to future scenarios. Global and integrated problems have lasting a quote, the result of a pioneering life of research and scientific effects. Sovereignist and “immediate” narratives have become discoveries by Nobel laureate and bacteriologist Joshua Leder- Francesco Rutelli Three key elements stand more contentious now, and are being questioned in light of the berg, who declares that ‘The single biggest threat to man’s con- out in the public debate: 4 President IED, Institute of European Democrats effects of global integration. tinued dominance on the planet is the virus’ . 1. How should the international community interact? The glob- There are at least two essential lessons It is unlikely that in future years what Sonia Shah anticipated al co-operation remain very weak, weeks after the WHO decla- to consider in light of the Coronavirus (she has authored Pandemic: Tracking Contagions from Chol- Countering and limiting the effects of rising sea and ocean ration marking the upgrade of COVID-19 from epidemic to pan- pandemic; one is the environmental issue; era to Ebola and Beyond; and the forthcoming The Next Great levels is an important part of the crucial commitment of our time demic. The battle for everybody’s health, rather than provoking the second is governance. Migration: the Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move) will actu- to mitigate and adapt to Climate Change. a strong commitment to multilateral collaboration, has been the ally occur: ‘for decades, we’ve sated our outsized appetites by Is it too much of a challenge to be truly engaged with the de- subject of national strategies and diverse operational approach- Let’s go back to the topic of Climate Change. encroaching on an ever-expanding swath of the planet with our cision-making and strategic actions of rulers and public actors? es, frequently in contrast with each other. This battle is the result Recent events are linked to the dynamics the Anthropocene, industrial activities, forcing wild species to cram into remaining Is it too late to issue political agendas pinned to the results of the of conflicting visions and positions – in the best of cases – and of as Nobel prize winner Paul Crutzen’s and the scientific communi- fragments of habitat in closer proximity to ours. That’s what has next elections? How can we leave the vicious circle where mat- individual governments’ Soft Power to determine who has acted ty define it: the new Era that we inhabit, where men are capable allowed animal microbes such as SARS-COV2 – not to mention ters that affect everybody’s future appear negligible compared most effectively; most responsibly; most transparently; most col- of changing the balanced pre-existing ecosystems – in many re- hundreds of others from Ebola to Zika – to cross over into human to the impending emergency that afflicts the international com- laboratively, etc. These competing narratives, used as self-serv- spects, irreversibly. bodies, causing epidemics. In theory, we could decide to shrink munity? ing tools during the crisis, are destined to become even more The debate is intrinsically connected to: the age of globalisa- our industrial footprint and conserve wildlife habitat, so that an- To answer these questions, we need to link the content of this disruptive in the aftermath of the pandemic. And, please, don’t tion; the growth of the world population which currently stands imal microbes stay in animals’ bodies, instead’5. However, politi- publication with the global COVID-19 emergency. The crisis that forget the risk of new medical and scientific geopolitical compe- at 7.7 billion people; and the involvement and physical interac- cians and citizens must focus on the urgent search of a lasting has paralysed the world since March 2020 hasn’t happened out titions, rather than indispensible co-operations. tion through trade, travel and migration among practically every compromise between shared well-being and the environmental of the blue: all the conditions for it to arise were in place, and 2. The fast-paced entry of the global community into the era population on the planet. Infections that adapt to humans and sustainability of human growth. in addition we were caught unprepared, without adequate pre- of universally transmissible infections that are capable of tempo- are caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi and other agents – some The second lesson is about our democracies. Advocates of ventative or counter-measures. rarily halting social relations, trade, and entire production and of which transmitted directly, others indirectly – are being closely democracy and the European integration are gravely concerned The climate crisis is already underway and it will certainly services sectors, has also put democratic procedures on hold studied. Wuhan’s case is similar, according to scientists, to other about the political faltering, divisions and contradictions with bring the consequences analysed in this work, among others. in various parts of the world. This translates into closed parlia- epidemics generated by the use of wild species for nutrition and which the 27 EU Member States have tackled the COVID-19 crisis. Unless we manage to take the necessary, widely-known meas- ments, elections postponed or suspended, and the centralisation for the preparation of traditional medicines – both in recently ur- Future developments will tell us whether this crisis will prove a di- ures in a rational, planned and shared manner, we will not be of exceptional and interim powers in the hands of the rulers in of- banised environments with significant and rapid transport con- visive factor, or to the contrary will rekindle the European Union able to stop and reverse the current course of events. fice. This is a globally shared need, not only because people are nections or, for instance, when human communities have recent- ability to become involved in a globalised world according to en- Since we started working on this volume, the global context worried or scared, but because the state of emergency is real. ly moved to areas that are undergoing deforestation. tirely new strategic guidelines. has changed dramatically. As we will see shortly, the contents It creates an extended mandate, certainly not unrelated to the It should be noted that a vector – as well as a weakening fac- of these pages are not less, but more relevant and topical than recent trend of increasing popular support for models other than tor of the lung and respiratory defences – is air pollution, with What is certain is that the world has been ever.