Some 10 pct of Mediterranean fish to go extinct by 2050: Report

ISTANBUL

Turkey will be one of the countries in Europe that will be affected the most by global warming as some 10 percent of fish species in the Mediterranean Sea will go extinct by 2050, a U.N. report has said.

According to the latest report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Turkey will feel the “harm by the global warming within its soil and the seas surrounding the country.”

The number of people dying due to soaring temperature annually in Europe is around 2,700. “It is estimated to rise up to some 30,000 by 2050,” the report said. “Most of the cases will be seen in the Mediterranean basin, which also covers Turkey.”

Highlighting that some 10 percent of fish species in the Mediterranean Sea will be vanished by 2050, the report also pointed out the year 2060.

“Some 20 percent of the marine species with high economic value in the east Mediterranean and most of the fish species in the Black Sea will go extinct four decades later.”

Water shortage is another issue the U.N. officials remarked on for the middle of the 21st century in the report.

“There is a risk that some 54 percent of the population living in the Mediterranean countries will witness water shortage.”

The report ended with a warning to Turkey’s most populous city, saying that “Istanbul will have an economic loss due to drought.”