The Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias, spoke at the conference “Eighth Sustainability Summit for SE Europe & the Mediterranean – Re-inventing green leadership: Collectivity vs fragmentation” » of Economist Impact. At the same time, the minister emphasized the need for Europe to defend primary production and water resources, as well as mobilize for the consequences of major disasters.

“Europe must produce, Europe must “wake up” in terms of primary production, it must defend the water resources that we will not have in a short time, it must mobilize for the consequences of major natural disasters in which national economies cannot bear. And you, the technocrats, the experts, the people of science, the people who can measure this, must help so that the implemented policies move in this direction” said Mr. Kikilias, speaking in the context of the panel entitled “Natural Disasters: Confronting the Consequences of Climate Change”.

“First and foremost, by far the second, is human life,” said Mr. Kikilias and added that this year, in a huge and very difficult fire fighting season, perhaps the worst in the last 40 years, according to the fire-meteorological conditions , tried “very hard” to defend it and added that the Eye “was a turning point to change the data in the prioritization of the risks of natural disasters in the country”.

Regarding the conditions they faced and continue to face, the minister pointed out that in half of our country we still have an absolute shortage of water. “Starting from the Evros, going down to the Aegean islands, in Eastern Attica, at the foot of the Peloponnese up to Kythera and up to Crete, it has rained from little to almost none in the last, I think 6-8 months now. And the conditions are such that we have the map at index 3, no rain and we will have 7-8 and locally 9 Beaufort in the next few days. These are the conditions we have been facing since May 1st, that I have been around day and night with the partners in the Civil Protection War Room. The interoperability of the Armed Forces, the Civil Protection, the Coast Guard, the Police, the Fire Brigade, the DEDDIE, the ADMIE, the 112, along with Artificial Intelligence, is an achievement of recent years, giving new possibilities to the country”.

Mr. Kikilias referred to a number of Civil Protection actions for this year’s fire fighting season, such as the contribution of new technology and drones in detecting the starting point of a fire.

“We understood and saw that the 35-45 minutes needed by the firefighting means or aerials to detect, find the starting point of a fire and reach it, was now too much for the mega fires we are dealing with. So, the more than 50 drones, which are still flying, 24/7 over Attica, in the three mountain masses, in Parnitha, Penteli and Ymittos, but also in other areas and throughout Greece, from Dadia , Evros, Halkidiki, Mount Athos, Thessaloniki, Evia, Karystos, the area around Loutraki, give us an image from the first second. Changing the culture so that the air vehicles we have fly laden, patrolling over Attica and elsewhere, either with water or with retarding liquid. And so combining the two, so that we can reach the field in 5, 6, 7 minutes, it gave other operational possibilities to this scheme that I mentioned to you”, pointed out Mr. Kikilias. In addition, he spoke, among other things, about the cleaning of the plots, as well as about the change in the doctrine of dealing with forest fires. “Very important projects were done together with AntiNero of the Ministry of Energy and Environment. Hundreds of thousands of acres were cleared. We all worked together. We tried very, very hard. The evidence is irrefutable. Last year over 1.7 million acres were burned in Greece. This year, we are below the average of the last 20 years. At 10% of burned acres of forest compared to the 20-year average. Well below what one would expect in the most difficult fire season we have faced. And I think this is evident throughout Greece”, noted Mr. Kikilias.

Finally, as he pointed out, after the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis is the biggest issue facing humanity and will concern the planet in the coming years. “For the last two 24 hours, the Sahara desert has been flooding. The images are dystopian, they seem like they are taken from Hollywood movies, which we thought could never happen. More than a dozen people have drowned. And in the sand dunes of the desert there are now lakes” he said characteristically, noting that whatever measures the countries take, none can completely eliminate the consequences of the natural disasters caused by the ever intensifying climate crisis.

For his part, the secretary general of the Academy of Athens, envoy for the climate in Greece, Christos Zerefos, referred to the cost of climate change, which according to a study by the Bank of Greece, showed that it is too high for Greece. “The cost of the climate crisis by the end of the century will exceed 130 trillion dollars. On our scales, the cost to our country is many tens of billions of euros. It is as if we are adding another external debt to our country and we can avoid this debt”, noted Mr. Zerefos. In addition, he pointed out that “we are living the warmest thirty years on our planet since there are measurements. But it is also one of the warmest in the history of the planet” and added that carbon dioxide has already exceeded any values ​​it had in interglacial periods. At the same time, he mentioned the contribution of the accuracy of forecasts to the management of natural disasters, as well as the need for citizens to follow the laws. “Only 75 to 80% of the plots were cleared. The remaining 25% may be the next fuse that will burn their neighbors and themselves,” he underlined.

“We should have the worst case scenario in mind.” This was pointed out, among others, by the professor at the University of Southern California and professor of natural disasters at the University of Crete, Konstantinos Synolakis, regarding the management of natural disasters and their consequences.

“There is of course a lot that anyone can suggest in terms of infrastructure to businesses. How they can plan and decide, where to invest in terms of resilience and protection, but when we talk about protecting and saving human life, things are completely different,” he underlined. In addition, Mr. Synolakis referred to the contribution of new technologies to the management of natural disasters and added that it is very important to have satellite monitoring.

“The last five years, from Matty in Maui, to Daniel and with Milton. It’s a huge lesson that we all have to learn from,” noted Mr. Synolakis.

For his part, the special adviser to the president of the Republic of Cyprus on matters of civil protection and crisis management, professor at the European University of Cyprus, George Boustras, pointed out that “we have come a long way” while he also referred to the AEGIS program which “is very important for civil protection in Greece” and added that in Cyprus a program is also being drawn up by the government which includes the purchase of new aircraft.

“We have advanced a lot technologically. This is undeniable. It is very important that we have the drones. It is very important that we have observation technologies, geo-observation from space,” he noted. Regarding what should be done in the management of natural disasters, Mr. Boustras pointed out that “we have to see it as a safety issue at a social level”. “If we consider it as such then we have various tools that we can rely on. First of all, the first thing we should do is change the safety culture, which is usually done at an organizational level, that is, we should take it to a national level. Our fellow citizens should be informed, we should aim to find out the causes of specific fires in specific communities so that we can go back and especially when there are trends in these disasters”, he underlined and added that a very good job is being done in repression. “We are starting to do a very good job in prevention, we should intensify prevention even more so that we get better results,” he concluded.