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Melting snow prompts border change between Switzerland and Italy
Peter Popham, The Independent
Global warming is dissolving the Alpine glaciers so rapidly that Italy and Switzerland have decided they must re-draw their national borders to take account of the new realities.
The border has been fixed since 1861, when Italy became a unified state. But for the past century the surface area of the “cryosphere”, the zone of glaciers, permanent snow cover and permafrost, has been shrinking steadily, with dramatic acceleration in the past five years. This is the area over which the national frontier passes and the two countries have now agreed to have their experts sit down together and hash out where it ought to run now.
(24 March 2009)
Maldives rises to climate challenge
Chris Morris, BBC New online
People have lived on this archipelago for 3,000 years, and from the air it looks absolutely wonderful.
But down below is the front line in the fight against sea level rise.
We land at a remote atoll – Maduvari – with Maldives Vice-President Mohamed Waheed. It is home to about 2,000 people.
The vice-president takes me to a beach that used to be a paved road 3m (15ft) wide – it has now been reclaimed by the sea. And houses nearby are crumbling into the water.
“There is a natural process, or erosion, going on,” Dr Waheed says. “But that process is being worsened by changing global weather patterns.”
“How long do you think this island can be inhabited?” I ask.
“Not more than 20 years,” he says. “Then we’ll have to abandon it. Children growing up in primary school now won’t be able to live here.”
(17 March 2009)
A global ‘national security’ issue lurks at Bangladesh’s border
Lisa Friendman, climatewire via New York Times
A high, heavily reinforced barbed wire fence cuts a jagged line through an otherwise empty field of tall grass and tamarind plants here. Climate change didn’t bring this fence, but it is providing a fresh reason for its existence and ongoing expansion.
On this side of the fence, rising sea levels caused by climate change are beginning to inundate low-lying Bangladesh. Scientists estimate that by midcentury as many as 15 million people could be displaced.
On the other side of the fence, India isn’t taking any chances. Already alarmed about illegal immigration, it is nearing completion of about 2,100 miles worth of high-tech fencing along its long and porous border with Bangladesh.
“Bangladesh is a country that could provide more climate refugees than anywhere else on earth,” said Isabel Hilton, an environmental commentator whose London-based nonprofit promotes climate change dialogue in China and throughout Asia.
“What that fence says to me is, wherever those people are going to go, they’re not going to India,” Hilton said.
(23 March 2009)
