A Swiss study found that nearly 80% of cities in the world will undergo dramatic and potentially disastrous changes within the next 30 years, based on climate change models. According to the study, climates of major cities across the globe, including Budapest, will change dramatically by 2050.
An interactive map, prepared by Crowther Lab shows hundreds of cities and their 2050 counterparts. According to the map, Seattle’s climate will be like San Francisco’s, London will be the new Barcelona, Stockholm will get Budapest’s temperature, while in thirty years, the Hungarian capital will have a similar climate to that of the North-Macedonian capital, Skopje. This means Hungarians will have to deal with major heat waves and 40 degrees Celsius temperatures in the summer months.
Founder of Crowther Lab told Guardian that “these are environmental conditions that are not experienced anywhere on the planet at the moment,” adding that it means
there will be new political challenges, new infrastructure challenges, that we have not faced before.
The study of 520 major cities published in the journal Plos One, also shows that water shortages will affect scores of cities now in temperate climates as a result of the global heating, which is forecast to increase by as much as 3.5 degrees in European cities in summer and 4.7 degrees in winter. Nearly eight out of ten cities will experience dramatic changes and by 2050, 104 of the studied cities are forecast to experience changes in climatic conditions that have not yet been seen in any major city.
Meanwhile, as part of a civil action, people plan to plant 10 million trees in Hungary. The initiative was launched on Facebook by Iván András Bojár a couple of days ago, and since then nearly 6 thousand people liked the post, 12 thousand have shared it and almost a thousand have commented. Over half a day, 120 people offered their help to András who is trying to get a variety of supporters: from foresters to programmers, graphic artists, economists, fundraisers, and media partners.