This presentation is about assessment of the vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity of Greece in the face of an extreme climate-related hazard known as Bushfire. Let’s start with the presentation. (Next Slide)

Greece is situated in the Mediterranean region, characterized by hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. This climate makes Greece particularly susceptible to climate-related hazards, such as droughts, heatwaves, and bushfires. The Mediterranean region is identified as a climate change hotspot, experiencing faster warming than the global average. If we look at the climate map of Greece, we can see that most of the regions experience hot and warm summer during most of a year due to which Greece faces a high risk of bushfires. The country’s extensive coastline and numerous islands amplify its vulnerability to bushfires especially during the dry summer months. Climate change has exacerbated this vulnerability, leading to more frequent and severe bushfires. In terms of climate change adaptation, Greece is actively engaged into adaptation efforts and has ratified international agreements like Paris Agreements, the EU Green Deal and developing national strategies and actions plans to address climate change impacts. The Greece government are getting funds for UN and EU and taking initiatives to support resilience and adaptation efforts. Despite all this, they are moving towards adaptation but at slow pace. A series of decisions made by successive governments in recent years have shown that the country is at least acknowledging the urgency of the matter. (Next Slide)

Recurring and escalating issues of bushfires over the years that are beyond the control are due to absence of proper adaptation strategies and climate change action plan. A bushfire is basically an uncontrolled and rapidly spreading fire that lightens up the forest areas, trees, vegetation areas, and so on. This happens due to various reasons. An ignition by human activities can start the fire. Climate change is contributing to more frequent and intense bushfires in many regions. Rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, and altered weather patterns increase the likelihood of extreme fire conditions. And once even a small fire lights up in a vulnerable area, strong winds of Greece pushes it away and spread it to huge scale. It can spread more rapidly in densely forested and vegetation areas. As Greece is more vegetated and forested region, this makes Greece more susceptible to wildfires. If we talk about the nature of this hazard, it can spread rapidly, it can reach to extremely high temperatures, and have the capability to burn down the whole forest. It can disrupt ecosystem and biodiversity, can affect human health and can also led towards the accidents or deaths. As the economy of Greece mostly depends on the agriculture, a wildfire can severely impact the economy of the country. It have many other impacts as well. Such as property damage and loss, Entire communities may have to move from the area due to bushfire. Bushfire can disrupt essential services. It impacts government as government has to develop emergency response units and spend costs and resources. Since 2007, Greece is experiencing wildfires at rapid rate. First, it started in 2007 in multiple regions, then in 2009, after that in 2012 near Chios region, then in 2018 in Attica region near Athens, then in 2021 across different regions and then again in 2023 in July. After every two to three years, Greece is experiencing extreme wildfires. Some events were longer in duration than expected. However, if we talk about the most recent wildfire in Greece, it lasted for two months. (Next Slide)

Now if we specifically talk about the most recent event. The 2023 Greece wildfires killed around 20 people and injured more than 70 people. Not only this but few migrants and Pakistani people are also found dead in this wildfire. 2021 Greece wildfires killed at least 2 people and injured around 20 people. While 2018 wildfires across Greece took most of the lives and injured many people. All this recent data on deaths and injuries demonstrate the vulnerability of Greece towards wildfires. This shows that the Greece is quite vulnerable to bushfires. Bushfires can take place due to any reasons and can spread rapidly across the region, burning thousands of hectares land. As we can see in the picture, bushfires across different regions of Greece in 2023. Agriculture and tourism sector generates most of the income for the country. But climate variability such as extreme weather events disrupt these sector and cause huge losses to the government. Also, this makes more vulnerable to communities of Greece. Water scarcity, extreme temperature, changing weather conditions, limited resources, dependency on tourism, all these situations expose Greece to climate-related hazards such as bushfires. Furthermore, lack of capabilities and trainings make communities and government more vulnerable to bushfires.

Greece has dedicated emergency response units and firefighting services. These organizations are trained and equipped to respond to wildfires and other climate-related disasters promptly. Moreover, the Greece government is collaborating with the United Nations and European Union to initiative climate adaptation projects and seeking funds from these organisations to meet their net zero goal and implement climate adaptation strategies. There are early waning systems in place to provide information related to wildfires and other climate-related hazards. Moreover, the government of Greece is launching public awareness campaigns, programs, and workshops to spread the knowledge related to bushfires and how we can control them or avoid them. The government have invested into an integrated project to boost the implementation of adaptation policy across Greece. This program focuses on analysis of National Adaptation Strategy and actions plans related to adaptation. AdaptInGR aims to educate and assist local authorities in putting together regional adaptation plans, collect data on the impacts of climate change, and raise awareness among the public. They are doing every possible efforts to minimize the frequency and severity of bushfires and let the community understand basic guides in order to control the bushfires or avoid it from happening. Around 272 projects are running in Greece from which 187 projects costs around 446 million pounds in which European Union contributed 244.5 million pounds. The government is making every possible efforts to promote adaptation and mitigate bushfires effectively. They are spreading awareness, teaching people to control their human activities, allocating resources and funds properly to secure agricultural lands, and much more. They are providing workshops, seminars, and various other activities to strengthen adaptive capacity. This shows the resilience and adaptive capacity of Greece.

There is an opportunity of reforestation to minimize bushfires. There is need to replace old and dead bushes or trees and replace it with newer ones. These is need to grow more trees and forests to reduce carbon emissions. According to Lehmann, an explicit national strategy to adopt local adaptation strategies can be implemented to enhance opportunities for adaptation planning and implementation of adaptation strategies across the country. Since, Greece has signed the agreement with European Union. There is opportunity for Greece to acquire funds from European Union and use those funds to implement adaptation initiatives. Moreover, there is opportunity to invest into sustainable land and natural resources management practices. This includes restoration efforts, controlled burns and responsible land-use planning. One of the main challenges to adaptation planning so far is that adaptation plans must be drafted and implemented on a regional level – but many local authorities are untrained, underfunded and understaffed. This is partly a result of Greece’s debt crisis of the 2010s, which left the country without the administrative and financial resources to implement a proper adaptation strategy, including a monitoring mechanism for the progression of adaptation projects. Since Greece facing economic challenges, the Government have limited resources and budget that hindering the implementation of adaptation strategy. Moreover, climate change leads to climate variability making it challenging to predict and plan for extreme events. Despite having a national strategy and actions plans related to adaptation, there is lack of governance structure that influences the adaptation planning in Greece.

This assessment of Greece in face of bushfires revealed that due to extreme weather conditions, prolonged periods of high temperatures, climate change, hot and dry summer across Greece, and human activities, bushfires are occurring more rapidly in Greece. After every 3 to 4 years, Greece is facing extreme bushfires that burning thousands of hectares of land which is not only affecting the environment but also badly affecting the economy of the Greece. In terms of adaptation, Greece is moving towards adaptation planning and actions plans but they are moving at very slow pace. Also, it has been found that many agricultural lands, huge forested and vegetation area, all these makes Greece a vulnerable region for bushfires. Moreover, it is more vulnerable as for almost more than half of the year, Greece experiences hot and dry summer along with high temperatures. When it comes to resilience and adaptive capacity, now government knows what to do. They have national strategy in place, they have emergency response units to send right on time. Moreover, the government is working in collaboration with EU on different adaptation projects to minimize carbon emissions as well as bushfires across Greece. The Government is creating awareness across public through various campaigns, programs, and workshops. Moreover, the government is setting up strict policies to keep the home, residential buildings or any other buildings away from forests or bushes, or areas that are more susceptible to bushfires. However, there are still many opportunities. The government of Greece can expand forests and restore wetlands. Can make investments into natural resource management practices. Can adopt local adaptation strategies and so on. However, challenges to adaptation planning also exist as many local authorities are untrained, underfunded and understaffed, there is lack of governance structure, and Greece also facing economic challenges and thus have limited budget and resources to implement adaptation strategies and action plans.

That’s all from our side. These are the references that we have used to conduct this assessment. Thank you!