Israel
Climate change impacts
It takes only 189 days for the average Canadian to produce as much greenhouse gases as the average Israeli will produce over the course of the entire year. Therefore, July 8th (189 days into the year) is "Climate Change Impacts in Israel Day."
Israel, like other countries in the Mediterranean basin, is particularly threatened by the warming and drying trend impacts of climate change that may have drastic effects on the “country’s water sector, agricultural production, drainage systems, the energy sector, and the coastal environment.”
For example, water supply in Israel may severely decrease, “falling to around 60% of current levels by 2100, due to sedimentation in reservoirs, salinization and the lack of reservoir recharge. Increased surface runoff will reduce aquifer recharge, and sea level rise and the intrusion of seawater into the coastal aquifer will further damage groundwater.”
Story
The Israeli Water Authority “has informed farmers that they intend to decrease the water ration to farmers by only 5 million cubic meters, reducing the cutback from 100 million cubic meters to 95 million cubic meters.... Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon warned recently that the water cutback will dramatically decrease large-scale cultivation in the north and require the import of raw materials from abroad, resulting in increased unemployment.”
“Water Authority spokesman Uri Shor said that despite the farmers' problems, a cutback in all sectors of all the water economy was unavoidable, since ‘we have no guarantee what next winter will be like; it may be as dry as the four that preceded it.’"
To read more about the water shortages facing Israel’s famers, read the article at Haaretz.com.
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