Global Dawning

Property pundits have yet to wake up to the implications of global warming, but it is only a matter of time until it dawns on them.  When that happens, it will become evident that today’s darlings of the overseas property market – Spain, Dubai. Bulgaria, Portugal and all the rest, will be in the news for different reasons.

Global warming is one of the hottest topics in the news today, the dire predictions of climate change becoming ever more imminent and evident.  Property buyers need to take a close look into a crystal ball to make sure that their investment is not going to sink into a climate caused quagmire.

An important ramification of this climate change is the prediction of huge population movements, as weather becomes increasingly severe in many parts of the world.  The changing weather will affect food supplies as crops fail and widespread disease will blight various parts of the world.  People will be forced to pick up sticks and move to areas which are less affected by the extremes of weather. 

If you imagine great hordes of impoverished refugees in makeshift shelters, then you are probably correct.  But many of the affluent will also become a type of refugee.  Even now many people choose to live in countries like Spain, because of the good weather.  They are still refugees, albeit less desperate.  This type of lifestyle refugee is set to increase exponentially over the coming years, and the areas that they move to will therefore undergo an equally exponential growth in demand, triggering selective meteoric price rises in certain parts of the world.

We are not talking about a time far in the distant future.  These are predictions for the next two decades.  Because the rate of weather change is accelerating, this future is going to be here not only within your lifetime, but well within the term of an average mortgage.  For this reason, property buyers will need to wake up to what is happening in the world and relate it to the decisions we make about property buying today. 

So the question is, where is the weather going to create the most clement climate?  With the predicted desertification of Portugal and mainland Spain and the Mediterranean becoming an algae soup, the traditional European getaways are not going to fit the bill.  Signs of these changes are already evident: in the news: massive water supply crises on the Iberian Peninsular, desertification and species extinction in the Med

Continental climate types are likely to be ravaged by storms and suffer the highest extremes of temperature.  Islands, whose weather is tempered by large bodies of water surrounding them are likely to suffer less.  However, Islands are often low lying, and rising sea levels will wash some away entirely.  Another factor is their whereabouts.  The Gulf Stream, which controls our weather with a ‘conveyor belt’ of warmth, is at risk.  A location too far from the Equator may see freezing gales.

We, in Tenerife, are the fortunate ones.  An island, well above sea level, close to the equator and economically part of Europe is as close to the ideal as you will find.  Climatologists predict that we may suffer more tropical storms, but by and large the weather will remain unchanged.  Our main concern will be the sheer numbers of people who will want to live here.  Spanish from the mainland, and indeed Europeans from all over the community will be clamouring to own a piece of Tenerife.  But until the real implications of climate change dawn on the rest of the world we can sit back and relax in the balmy breeze that gently warms our subtropical paradise: a calm before the storm.