Up to 34 major Ukrainian coastal cities, including Odesa, Kherson, Mariupol, Mykolaiv, Berdiansk, and Kerch, face the threat of flooding by the end of the century due to rising sea levels, according to a study by Ekodia, a Kyiv-based ecology expert center.
In a study presented on Jan. 16, it is predicted that the sea will also swallow 62 villages, 660 environmentally dangerous facilities, 200,000 hectares of agricultural lands and 98 natural parks, potentially displacing up to 74,000 people.
In general, the rising water, due to global warning, could swallow up as much as 1 million hectares of Ukrainian land, the activists believe.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in late 18th century, global temperatures have increased almost by 1 degree Celsius, according to United Nations environmental experts.
“Even such a seemingly insignificant warming is already causing serious problems — the area of the ice caps is decreasing, sea levels are rising, severe storms happen more frequently, (as do) tornadoes, intense flooding, and droughts,” the study reads.
“These changes concern not only the environment, but also have a strong effect on human life, health, and well-being all over the world.”
The main reason for the greenhouse effect that causes this warming is human activities, such as industrial production, agriculture, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation, the activists said.
The concentration in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrogen oxide, which cause the warming, have reached the highest levels in at least 800,000 years, and are continuing to grow. Over the past 50 years, they have doubled, the think tank said.
To limit the warming to at most 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century, 195 nations signed in 2015 the Paris Agreement, which called on signatories to make their so-called “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) in “ambitious” and “just” ways to help achieve the global goal.
Ukraine, with its 1.04-percent quota in acceptable global greenhouse gas emissions, is also party to this convention. But, as the Ekodia’s study reads, the country is making no progress in cutting emissions.
“Ukraine too makes a strong contribution to global warming, but so far has not declared any intentions to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the nearest decade,” the researchers said.
“Last year, a group of independent experts with the Climate Action Tracker found Ukraine’s NDC very unambitious. As of now, Ukraine’s NDC envisages the possibility of increasing emissions by 68 percent, to the level of 2016 by the year 2030.
That’s because today, compared to the”default” year of 1990, Ukraine has some of the lowest levels of greenhouse gas emissions in its years of independence. At the same time, even under the most optimistic scenario of Ukraine’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy, the gas emission level of 2015 is to be reached only by 2050. Therefore, there’s no talk about large-scale decarbonization of economy.”
However, the world in general not doing a good job in tackling global warming either.
The Earth’s average temperature is likely to increase by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, and due to ice cap meltdown, global sea levels could rise by nearly 1 meter by the end of the 21st century and by over 10 meters in the next century, the study read.
That would flood many of the world’s coastal megalopolises, but not many realize that Ukraine, with its 2,500-kilometer coastline and numerous coastal cities, would also be badly affected.
“Apart from reducing gas emissions, even now there’s a necessity to get adapted to climate change and sea level rise,” the activists noted. “But in Ukraine, there is almost no understandable and visualized data on the increasing level of the Black and the Azov seas.”
The activists therefore created an interactive map marking those of Ukraine’s coastal areas in danger of permanent and seasonal flooding.
Ukraine’s coastline in the 22nd century would look like this, if sea levels rise as predicted:
The map of Ukraine’s probable coastline by 2100
However, the Ekodia’s warning represent the worst-case scenario, in which the global carbon emissions remains intense though the rest of the century.
In this case, the study notes, the average global sea level would increase by 0.82 meters, while the Black and Azov seas would rise by 0.46 meters.
The worst-affected zones would be concentrated in currently Russian-occupied Crimea, notably in the peninsula’s northern part, and the Dnipro River basin the Kherson Oblast, and in the Danube delta in Odesa Oblast.
The activists, who carried out a detailed analysis of the topography of Ukraine’s coastline, showed that whole districts of many major cities, such as Odesa (17 percent), Mariupol (8 percent), or Berdyansk (30 percent) would go underwater. Up to 590 other settlements could also be partially flooded.
Two towns, namely Sholkove in Crimea and Vilkove in the Odesa Oblast, would find themselves completely under water.
Moreover, in Mariupol, the flooding zone would swallow Azovstal, the giant iron and steel works and one of Ukraine’s top polluters, the study noted.
The activists however reiterated that their study shows a worst-case scenario. According to the study, there’s still a chance to reduce the impact of climate change in Ukraine by switching to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, abolishing coal-mining subsidies, and gradually reducing carbon emissions.
