Opinion / Mary Fitzgerald
Sea change
Today marks the newly instituted Day of the Mediterranean, so I’ll be raising a glass to the storied body of water I have spent years reporting around. In 2020, the 42 member states that comprise the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) designated 28 November as an annual celebration of the sea that links Europe, Africa and the Middle East. People, goods and ideas have crossed the Med over millennia, contributing to the diversity of its cultural heritage. Now, more than 480 million people live along its coast.
The Barcelona-headquartered UfM seeks to build on what those populations have in common in order to address shared challenges. Few are more pressing than climate change: the region is warming 20 per cent faster than the global average. Wildfires have become more frequent. Sea temperatures have risen to alarming levels, threatening delicate ecosystems.
Given all this, it was heartening to see this year’s COP 27 summit in Egypt host its first-ever Mediterranean Pavilion, which highlighted some of the solutions (both public policies and civil society initiatives) that are being developed to counteract the effects of climate change. Visionary mayors in cities like Athens, Marseille and Palermo are also playing a fundamental role: they realise the importance of collaboration with their counterparts.
In Marseille, mayor Benoît Payan oversees a Green-Left coalition which has prioritised environmental issues. This summer Payan organised a petition against cruise ship traffic that worsens air pollution in the city and called for a pan-Mediterranean effort on other shared climate threats. Such cooperation could provide a wider blueprint on how to tackle environmental challenges worldwide. Now that’s something to celebrate.
Mary Fitzgerald is Monocle's North Africa correspondent.