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With climate change underway, by 2090, Geneva will have the climate of Puglia. This was stated by a Swiss exponent of the Greens, according to whom the city must be transformed on the Mediterranean urban model, with white walls and infrastructures that favor the natural circulation of air. In the countryside, he underlines, olive trees are beginning to be planted.
Switzerland will be particularly affected by global warming, says Antonio Hodgers, head of the land department of the canton of Geneva in an interview published today by the newspaper Le Temps. “For every two degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures, the Swiss Plateau will suffer four,” he adds, specifying that his calculations are based on the forecasts of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
According to Hodgers, president of the Genevan government, the city must adapt to hotter summers – but with winters that will probably remain “stiff” – by increasing green spaces and reducing asphalt surfaces. To this end, “we will limit the number of gutters on buildings to allow rainwater to drain slowly, diffusing its freshness before returning to the ground.”
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Hodgers also plans to plant 150,000 trees. The historic center of Geneva is “already partially adapted” to a warmer climate, he observes. «This aspect must be considered when deciding to build or renovate». As for the countryside, “the canton is already helping farmers,” he continues. “Some are devoting themselves to olive trees.” Hodgers believes that Western society will be able to get used to the new climate standards. «Human beings are made to adapt», he observes, underlining that «people have been living happily in Puglia for thousands of years». But for the 15% of the world‘s population most threatened, the climate “will become unsustainable. That’s what worries me the most.”