Radio România Internațional

Tag: warming

  • July 19, 2023 UPDATE

    July 19, 2023 UPDATE

    WEATHER Extreme temperatures are still forecast in most of Romania,
    particularly in the south and east, where the temperature-humidity index will be above
    the critical 80% ceiling. The highs are expected to range between 25 and 37
    degrees Celsius. Most regions will also be facing atmospheric instability, with
    heavy rainfalls, thunderstorms and wind. Code yellow and code orange alerts are
    in place in the west of the country, where strong wind, thunderstorms, hail and
    heavy rainfalls are expected.


    FIREFIGHTERS On Wednesday Romania sent another 40 firefighters and
    several fire engines to Greece, where the authorities requested international
    assistance under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The decision to send
    additional intervention equipment and personnel was made by the Romanian
    government. Romania has deployed a total of 13 fire engines and 80 fire
    fighters, after the Greek authorities issued a code-red alert for extreme heat
    across the country, with temperatures of 42 degrees Celsius expected to
    contribute to the spreading of wildfires. The Romanian fire fighters are to
    stay in Greece until August 1.

    CLIMATE The UN says humanity must prepare for more intense heat
    waves and recommends that citizens develop their own battle plan to
    face these extreme day and night temperatures. In North America, Asia, North
    Africa and the Mediterranean, temperatures will keep exceeding 40 degrees
    Celsius in the coming days. According to experts, heat-trapping greenhouse gas
    emissions are at the origin of climate change. Italy is subject to new alerts for
    particularly hot weather, while several regions in Spain have been placed under
    code red alerts due to the extreme danger induced by the heat wave.


    GOVERNMENT The new minister for labour and
    social solidarity, Simona Bucura-Oprescu, and the new minister for family,
    youth and equal opportunities, Natalia Intotero, were sworn in on Wednesday in
    a ceremony held at Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest. Oprescu replaces Marius
    Budăi, and Intotero takes over from Gabriela Firea, who resigned following a
    scandal concerning abuse in care homes for the elderly. The appointment decrees
    were signed by president Klaus Iohannis earlier on Wednesday.


    MEETING The PM of Romania Marcel Ciolacu had an informal meeting
    with the PM of Hungary, Viktor Orban, during a private visit by Orban to Romania. According
    to a news release issued by the government, Marcel Ciolacu emphasised that the
    Romanian party is seeking to maintain an open, positive, and constructive
    approach in the relations between the 2 countries. He welcomed Budapest’s
    support for Romania’s Schengen accession efforts, and voiced hopes that Hungary
    would remain an ally in this respect for Romania. The 2 officials also
    exchanged views on the topic of the EU’s current priorities, ahead of Hungary taking
    over the presidency of the EU Council in January 2024.


    GRAIN Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and
    Slovakia would like the ban on Ukrainian grain imports to be extended at least
    until the end of the year, the agriculture ministers of the 5 countries announced
    on Wednesday after a meeting in Warsaw. They signed a
    joint statement on the need to extend the EU preventive measures concerning the
    imports of wheat, maze, rape
    and sunflower seeds from Ukraine. In the same statement, the signatories also
    suggest that the list of products subject to the preventive measures remain
    open. According to a news release issued by the Romanian agriculture ministry,
    the participants sought a joint approach to the problems facing the farmers in
    these countries, which will be presented in the forthcoming AgriFish Council
    meeting. Romania was represented by the agriculture minister Ionut Barbu. Meanwhile, Reuters reports, an official letter from
    the Ukrainian government says Ukraine is currently working on defining a
    temporary maritime transport route via Romanian territorial waters, to continue
    to export grain via Black Sea ports. On Tuesday Russia pulled out of the
    agreement allowing safe passage to Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea. (AMP)

  • Climate change impacts Romania

    Climate change impacts Romania

    2022 was the
    third warmest year in recorded history, with an average temperature of 11.7
    degrees Celsius and a 1.55-degree difference against the average temperature measured
    between 1981 and 2010, a survey of the National Meteorological Administration
    shows.

     

    The warmest five years between 1900 and 2022
    were: 2019, 2020, 2022, 2015 and 2007, and the period between 2012 and 2022 proved
    to be the warmest 11 years in a row, which confirms the tendency of weather
    warming in Romania as well.

     

    Furthermore, this year saw the warmest
    January day in recorded history when 22.5 degrees Celsius were reported in
    southern Romania.

     

    So, statistics prove what we all
    have seen for many years now that climate change affects the entire planet. And
    we can no longer speak about a local or national problem says Environment
    Minister, Barna Tanczos. This opinion is also shared by climatologist Roxana
    Bojariu, who in the following minutes will be explaining how Romania’s weather
    has changed in the past two decades.

     

    Roxana
    Bojariu: It didn’t happen all of a sudden, you know.
    We have witnessed the global warming for quite some time now, but the problem
    is that this is an accelerating process. It has been doing so in the past years
    but unfortunately the process continues and is getting worse as more greenhouse
    gases are accumulating in the atmosphere. We are feeling this here in Romania
    as well. And even if we had warm winters and periods with temperatures higher
    than usual before, the weather this year was very strange for the cold season
    and that was not only in Romania but in the entire Europe. So, if we draw the
    line and compare the temperatures in the northern hemisphere, we’ll clearly see
    they are higher than usual, which confirms the idea of accelerated climate
    change. And this isn’t visible only in winter. If you remember last summer
    proved to be the hottest in Europe in recorded history and the drought
    affecting the continent was the severest in the past 500 years.

     

    Last year’s drought also affected Romania but
    the Environment Ministry has given assurances they have resources to fight
    climate change. According to him, the section Forests and Biodiversity
    Protection, part of the National Plan of Recovery and Resilience, includes a
    total budget of roughly 1.2 billion euros, which can be used to increase the
    surface of forests. Barna Tanczos has underlined that forests are the most
    resilient when it comes to climate change effects. He recalled that the
    National Forestry Strategy was endorsed last autumn with a view to setting
    mandatory norms on afforestation and reforestation as well as on forests and
    forested surfaces located in areas that are vulnerable to climate change.

     

    At the same time, owners of forests
    and plots of land are being given incentives to preserve and capitalize on the
    true potential of these surfaces. They will benefit from 456 Euros per year per
    hectare for 20 years, in order to turn these areas into real forests. The
    forestry carbon reward is a measure through which we stimulate the
    transformation of as many plots of land as possible into future forests,
    Minister Tanczos explains. Roxana Bojariu tells us more about the future of the
    climate change and what we should expect next.

     

    Roxana
    Bojariu: The weather is not going to remain like that of course and even in the
    optimistic scenario when we have succeeded in limiting the rise of the global
    temperature to 1.5 Celsius under the Paris Agreement, we are still going to see
    higher temperatures. However, they will not be as high as in the worst case
    scenarios, where we haven’t managed to impose a limit. And this means not only
    a uniform warming in space and time but also extreme phenomena like those we
    have already witnessed. Suchlike phenomena will be affecting Romania as well, and
    the situation will worsen with the growing greenhouse gas emissions. Every
    tenth degree in the global average translates into hotter heatwaves and Romania
    will be in for more intense, more frequent and more persistent heatwaves. These
    will also cause wildfires although not like those affecting the Mediterranean
    countries, Greece, southern France or Portugal.

     

    The statistics of the meteorological
    alerts between 2017 and 2022 in Romania highlight the intensity, frequency and wider
    area covered by the dangerous phenomena with an impact over the social-economic
    activity. In 2022 alone, 130 weather alerts were issued, out of which five were
    Code Red. Roughly three thousand Nowcasting alerts were issued out of which 95 Code
    Red. At the same time, the 2021-2022 drought was a longer one, which
    intensified from one month to the other and eventually affected almost all the
    country’s agricultural regions.