Italy is at risk of flooding due
to climate change, according to experts gathered at Rome's
Accademia dei Lincei science academy for a conference on
adaptation strategies for climate change.
Hydrologist Alberto Montanari said the extreme weather
events that affect Italy the most are those that involve
precipitation, whose frequency rather than intensity have
increased.
"The entire country is at risk of flooding, with few
exceptions," he said.
Environmental Ministry General Director Maurizio Pernice
said there's a great opportunity to improve risk management with
the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change, which will
be completed by year's end and definitively approved by the
middle of 2017.
Climatologist Filippo Giorgi said the three main
consequences of climate change are rising sea levels, drought,
and glacier melting and that extreme events like heat waves
could become the norm in 50 to 60 years.
Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is essential for keeping
the global temperature in check, said Thomas Stocker, co-chair
of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), adding that a "fourth industrial revolution" is
needed: "decarbonization".
He said without any measures to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions, the goal of keeping global warming within two degrees
Celsius "will be moot by 2035".
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