Climate change threatens Lebanon’s snow and cedars – ‘Water is soon going to become a luxury’
By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent; editing by Janet Lawrence
FARAYA, Lebanon | Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:02am EST (Reuters) – Lebanon’s ski resorts have survived civil war but now face an insidious threat from climate change expected to cut snow cover by 40 percent by 2040. The effects of global warming are still a low priority for conflict-prone Lebanon, where environmental neglect rules. Skiers and the tourist businesses that depend on them hope this year’s warm winter and brief season was not a harbinger of the future for the Arab world’s only snow playgrounds. Christian Rizk, 47, manager of the Mzaar ski resort near Faraya, shies away from that idea, saying the season, which spanned barely half the once-normal three months, might have been an aberration. But he says the resort is adapting anyway. “Last season was catastrophic,” he told Reuters on a sunny late autumn morning near the barren slopes of Jebel Sannin, Lebanon’s second highest mountain at 2,695 meters. “This year we are installing new ski-lifts higher up, above 2,000 meters.” That mirrors how animals and plants seek higher altitudes as their habitat warms up — Lebanon expects maximum temperatures to rise 1 degree Celsius (34F) on the coast and 2C inland by 2040, according to government calculations. But some species, including Lebanon’s national symbol, the mighty cedar tree, are already straining at their upper limits. Cedars, some up to 3,000 years old, form the highest treeline. “I couldn’t give you a specific date when we might see the last cedar on our mountains, but eventually that might happen,” said Vahakn Kabakian, an Environment Ministry official preparing Lebanon’s next climate change report to the United Nations. The ministry says Lebanon faces rising sea levels and can expect dwindling rainfall, hotter, drier summers and more extreme events such as floods. Tourism and agriculture are among the most vulnerable economic sectors. In many cases, climate change will exacerbate Lebanon’s water and energy crises, as well as air pollution and other environmental woes afflicting a country whose political troubles and dysfunctional administration often stymie action. “Climate change should become the number one priority. It’s a survival problem,” Kabakian said. “Then again we lack the funds to implement the steps we’d have to take for mitigation.” Despite its relatively high rainfall, Lebanon expects to slip into water deficit by 2015, regardless of climate change, thanks to urbanization, population growth and mismanagement. In Beirut, summer demand for water already exceeds what the network supplies — partly because around 40 percent is lost to leaks — so many people pump from wells. Over-extraction from coastal aquifers has led to seawater intrusion and salinity. … “Water is soon going to become a luxury,” said Walid Kanaan, manager of the Intercontinental in the ski resort of Ouyoun al-Siman, listing the hotel’s energy- and water-saving measures. …
