The storm surge alert two weeks ago in Lanzarote resulted in several windows and doors of homes being affected in Punta Mujeres, as well as broken seawall walls in Playa Honda. "Undoubtedly these episodes will become more and more common," begins naturalist and environmental consultant Ezequiel Navío Vasseur in an interview with La Voz.
"The problem is that this type of impact, with the increase in sea level and coastal storms, will gain terrestrial space and reach a larger area inland," he continues. Ezequiel Navío was a climate change advisor to the presidency of the Cabildo de Lanzarote between 2019 and 2023, during the mandate of Dolores Corujo, and advisor on the same subject to the Cabildo de Gran Canaria between 2016 and 2019.
Data from the Institute of Oceanography and Global Change (IOCAG) of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria indicate that the sea level around the Canary Islands has increased between 19 and 20 centimeters since 1927, due to thermal expansion and melting ice. In addition, between 1983 and 2017, the ocean temperature also increased by one degree.
According to United Nations, around 90% of the "excess heat associated with global warming has been absorbed by the ocean" in this way, the global sea temperature "has increased 0.9 degrees since the pre-industrial era."
Despite the urgency, most of the island's administrations are not working on an action plan to stop or reduce the impacts of rising sea levels in Lanzarote. "We are very late, it's as if we don't want to see the problem until it really hits us with serious damage," he emphasizes.
Ezequiel Navío, who has also founded, directed and coordinated different projects for the preservation of nature, the fight against climate change or against the trafficking of protected species, assures that this situation is not new, nor is it unknown in the Canary Islands.
"These phenomena are perfectly identified by scientific studies from the most prestigious entities in the Canary Islands, such as universities or European scientific entities," the naturalist emphasizes. For example, the report Pima Adapta Costas, prepared in 2022 by the Ministry of Ecological Transition of the regional government, assesses the risk against climate change on the Canary coasts.
The aforementioned project includes the sections of the Lanzarote coast that are most at risk of disappearing due to rising sea levels. Among them, two forecasts are made, one for 2050 and another for 2100, both of which contemplate two scenarios depending on the greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere.
In Lanzarote, there are several essential points that will be affected, for example the thermal power plant, or the desalination plant of Las Caletas, the port of Arrecife or the airport. Thus, a good part of the coastline of the capital of Lanzarote, the towns of Caleta de Famara, La Santa or Caleta de Caballo will also be affected.
In addition, spaces of great environmental value such as the Famara beach-dune or the El Golfo area. Despite this, the list is much longer and also includes 4.5 kilometers of coastline of La Graciosa (from Caleta de Sebo to La Francesa), among others.
After learning about this situation, which includes the loss of 147 coastal sections throughout the Canary Islands, Navío says that "if the island councils and municipalities" have not started working "to face this threat, the problem is an inexplicable lack of political will."
"It is known that it is going to happen and nobody is doing anything. If the competent administrations do not take this threat into account, this phenomenon and do not start working immediately to reduce these impacts, then it is a political problem, it is a problem of political conception, of governance," he emphasizes.
In Lanzarote, the municipalities of Tías and Yaiza have already concluded their action plans for the Sustainable Energy Climate, according to Navío, who participated in the drafting of the Tías plan. While he anticipates that San Bartolomé, where he has also collaborated, "is about to publish it after many months of work."
The naturalist explains that "the other four municipalities [Haría, Teguise, Arrecife and Tinajo] have not given public signs of working on it."
"In the end, everything depends on the culture, common sense and the capacity of the people who run the governance bodies to worry about these issues. If there are rulers who only have in their heads the waste of parties or a short-term government program for four years so that they can be re-elected," Navío emphasizes.
To tackle the situation in each municipality, he proposes creating "tailor-made suits" to be able to analyze each particular case and offer the best possible solution.
In this line, he indicates that "this also involves rethinking residential and tourist occupations in the coastal area." Thus, he emphasizes that, "in many places not only is nothing new being built on the coast, but many infrastructures and buildings that are in the coastal area are being worked on to move them inland."
The increase in temperatures
The effects of climate change will not only bring with them an increase in sea level and coastal impacts, but will also mean "an increase in high-intensity winds, extreme heat waves, or the effect of heat islands in urban centers, which are harmful to the health of the population," he adds.
The Canarian climate is suffering a progressive tropicalization. "We are experiencing a change in temperature throughout the planet and of course it also affects the Canary Islands and also in a very important way as it is an isolated system, as it is an Archipelago, which are more vulnerable territories."
Looking ahead to the forecast for this year, the environmental consultant reports that "the possibilities of tropical storms and hurricanes being in the closest environments of the Canary Islands have increased greatly." As already happened in November 2005 with Tropical Storm Delta.
According to data from the Izaña Atmospheric Observatory, the average annual temperature of the Canary Islands has increased between 1.6 and 1.8 degrees between 1916 and 2024. Which translates into a temperature increase of 0.15 degrees every ten years. Forecasts indicate that temperature increases will continue to grow at higher rates than until now.
If the current situation continues and greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere are not significantly reduced, the forecasts of the Paris Agreement will be exceeded and the increase of 1.5 degrees will be reached in the next 13 years, according to the United Nations.
