Red Sea coral spotlights Swiss ‘Science Diplomacy’

Coral from the Red Sea is special for its exceptional ability to withstand the effects of climate change, but the countries whose scientists can help protect it don’t always get along. Switzerland is working to bring them together through so-called “Science Diplomacy”, an area which the Alpine country is increasingly involved in.  “At the end of the century it’s projected that we will have lost 90 percent of our coral reefs because the temperature will get too warm,” says scientist Anders Meibom of the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), which is leading the coral research project.  “But in the Red Sea we are quite sure that we have a population that can withstand these temperatures and still be fine, provided of course that the corals are not killed by local pollution in the region.”  Special coral from the Red Sea  Coral is our underwater forest, providing food and oxygen for the water and the ecosystem around the reef. Coral lives in symbiosis with algae, ...