Greek disaster expert: By 2030 there will be 300 million climate refugees

Efthymios Lekkas, Professor of Dynamic Tectonics, Applied Geology & Natural Disaster Management at Athens University, mentioned the medium and long-term effects of severe weather front Daniel in a television interview.

Climate refugees

Speaking to public broadcaster ERT, he said, among other things, that according to a UN study, by 2030 there will be 300 million climate refugees.

As he characteristically said: “No public service could have foreseen what happened, the use of advanced scientific knowledge, which is currently not being used, is required.”

Afterwards, Mr. Lekkas stated that it was mathematically certain that the flooding phenomena in Thessaly would move in the next few hours.

Climate change: This year’s July is the warmest for central and southern Greece since 2010

Big floods, huge costs

He pointed out that the predictions of 2019, which spoke of a major flood every 1,000 years, were overturned twice, within four years.

He stated that we have accelerated rates in a combination of phenomena, such as floods, landslides, etc.

As for the cost but also the effects on agricultural production, he estimated that it will exceed 1 billion euros.

The estimate, as he said, is without taking into account Thursday’s damages. He pointed out that the cost of IANOS was about 400 million euros. Based on algorithms based on JANUS precedent, the financial scope of the new disaster will exceed 1 billion euros.

He also estimated that several of the affected houses will no longer be habitable. He added that we have “advancement” of the flood front where, in addition to the water, volumes of soil mass are carried away by landslides.

Finally, he mentioned that the operational plans need to be redesigned.