Greece’s center-right government set up a new ministry to deal with the effects of climate change and appointed former EU Commissioner Christos Stylianides as minister.

Stylianides, 63, who worked as Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management from 2014 to 2019, has been appointed in response to recent forest fires, which burned more than 1.000 square kilometers of forest, in the small island of Euboea and southern Greece.

Heavily generated heat waves in Southern Europe in July and August, which occurred in Greece at its worst in decades, have also driven deadly wildfires in Turkey and sparked flames in Italy, France and the Balkans.

His nomination came after one former candidate, Evangelos Apostolakis, the former head of the army and Minister of Defense, pulled out, citing the lack of cross-party consensus for the new post.

Stylianides will be the new minister with responsibility for firefighting, emergency response and adjustment to the effects of climate change.

A previous Hellenic Air Force chief, Gen. Evangelos Tournas, has been appointed Deputy Minister.

In July, in order to protect the inhabitants against increasing temperatures, the Greek authorities appointed Eleni Myrivili, lead climate scientist, as their leader in thermal management.

Officials acknowledged shortcomings in how resources were used to fight the fire in Tuscany, where most of the damage was generated, but also blamed climate change for continuing deterioration in weather conditions.

Air chief marshal

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Air chief marshal is a four-star air officer rank which originated with the Royal Air Force, where it is the most senior peacetime air force rank. (wikipedia)


Hellenic Air Force

The Hellenic Air Force is the air force of Greece . It is considered to be one of the largest air forces in NATO and is globally placed 18th out of 139 countries. (wikipedia)


Christos Stylianides

Christos Stylianides is a Cypriot-Greek politician who serves as Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection of Greece. (wikipedia)


European Union

The European Union is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of 4,233,255. (wikipedia)


Evangelos Apostolakis

Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis is a Greek naval officer. In 2015–2019 he served as the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff. Since 13 January 2019 (wikipedia)


Citizenship of the European Union

Citizenship of the European Union is afforded to all citizens of European Union member states. It was formally created with the adoption of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, (wikipedia)


2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum

The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, (wikipedia)