Climate Change Awareness in the Middle East: The Role of the UN
Climate Change Awareness in the Middle East and the role of the UN
By Maya Garner
While 16-year-old Greta Thunberg’s climate change activism energized and broadened awareness of this crucial, planet-challenging issue among countries of the industrialised West, countries in the Middle East, one of the regions most affected, have lagged behind in addressing the issue.
All the indications are that climate change will have devastating effects on the region. Indeed, some crucial changes have already been noted. At a time when the Middle East is focused mainly on the civil wars and armed conflicts which beset the region, it would be salutary to consider how the effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate those conflicts and result in ever more widespread humanitarian disasters.
It is, therefore, timely and opportune for the UN to raise awareness of climate change in the Middle East region and to treat the issue as part of the political context behind the region’s conflicts especially in light of the ongoing struggle on the international level for control of the region’s oil interests.
. A 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center found that a global median of 54% considered climate change to be a “very serious problem” compared to 38% for the Middle East. More than half of those polled (51%) agreed that “climate change is affecting people now,” whereas in the Middle East just over a quarter (26%) believed this to be the case. Forty per cent indicated they were “very concerned” that climate change would affect them “personally” compared to 27% for the Middle East.
In marked contrast, respondents in Latin America registered the most concern (between 63 and 77%) in all three categories. Notably, Latin America is among the regions most affected by environmental destruction. Activists who have been defending environmental and land rights in Latin American countries have been repeatedly targeted, some paying with their lives.
According to the Pew survey respondents in the U.S. and China seemed least concerned about climate change, despite the two economies being responsible for the highest annual levels of CO2 emissions.
While Middle East countries do not feature among those topping the CO2 emission charts, this is partly due to their relative population sizes. However, oil countries in the Gulf have some of the highest per capita emission rates in the world. For example, in 2017, Qatar topped the global rankings at 49 tonnes (t) per person. Kuwait (25t), the United Arab Emirates (25t), Bahrain (23t), and Saudi Arabia (19t) featured high on the list as well considering that the global average that year was 4.8t per person, a further indication of the disparities and inequalities in global CO2 emissions.
In 2016, the World Bank declared the Middle East and North Africa to be among the regions most vulnerable to rising sea levels in the world, citing coastal areas in Tunisia, Qatar, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Egypt as being most at risk. The Egyptian city of Alexandria’s experiences of waterfront flooding has led to lethal building collapses. Elsewhere, of upstream water extractions mean the Nile is depositing less silt into riverine areas, causing the gradual disappearance of fertile soil. Rising sea levels in the Mediterranean are putting coastal cities at risk. Inland areas are also feeling the impact of climate change with many instances of desert flooding. Jeddah in Saudi Arabia has been subjected to annual floods in recent decades brought about by severe weather. A major storm in 2018 killed 30 people in the peninsula region and displaced 4,000 residents who were forced to evacuate. A month earlier, a deadly cyclone hit Yemen and Oman. Over the last 20 years, the Dead Sea has shrunk by one third. Currently dropping at a rate of 1.2 meters per year, it is estimated that it will have dried out completely by 2050. The cause? Higher temperature-induced evaporation, lower rainfall, and man-made installations diverting water sources elsewhere.
Temperature extremes are a major cause for concern in the region, as new record highs are regularly recorded in the Middle East and North Africa region. In 2016, Kuwait experienced temperatures of 54°C, Iraq reached 53.9°C, while in 2017, the United Arab Emirates reached 50.4°C. – in all cases, the highest ever recorded for these countries.
According to NASA, a continuous drought has prevailed in the eastern Mediterranean Levant since 1998 and is the worst in 900 years. The World Bank estimates that water scarcity will affect up to 100 million people in the region by 2025. According to the Max Planck Institute, temperatures in the Middle East and North Africa will have increased on average by 4°C by 2050, resulting in temperatures of 50°C becoming the new daytime norm. If global carbon emissions are not controlled, the entire region could become uninhabitable by 2100.
. The Max Planck Institute has issued an ominous warning about the potential consequences. “The Middle East and North Africa are currently being rocked by armed conflicts and political crises. But even if these were to be resolved, many people there will likely be forced to leave their homes in the coming decades.”
People fleeing from droughts, water and food shortages and other effects of climate change, will only add to the influx of refugees and exacerbate the ongoing refugee crisis. Food and water scarcity will lead to even more humanitarian disasters, to conflict over resources, and to tensions within and between countries stirred up by economic despair. These are the geo-political dynamics that threaten more armed conflict and political tensions, and conflict-induced displacement. The 2007-2010 drought in Syria that preceded the ongoing civil war is a case in point. Arguably, the current political unrest and refugee crisis can be traced back in part to an already changing climate. Similarly, the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the latter’s Grand Renaissance Dam and the attendant risk of diminished water supplies to the population of Egypt can only be exacerbated by the negative impact of climate change on the Nile’s water flow. Conflicts over resources are also likely to take the form of proxy wars, as has happened with many of the current conflicts in the region.
One key factor that determines regional stability or the lack thereof is the the role oil plays in shaping international interests in the Middle East. International influence over its oil resources is a cornerstone of the politics surrounding the region since the Middle East possesses more than half of the world’s recoverable crude oil resources. In addition, more than a quarter of the world’s oil is shipped through the Suez Canal.
Saudi Arabia’s oil production may be relatively assured, but there are areas where oil production is less stable because of conflict and more vulnerable to upheavals caused by climate change and disputes over resources. The urgent need to reduce CO2 emissions means the world must look to find alternatives to fossil fuels and economies must switch to green energy sources. Oil producers and exporters will have to diversify and adjust their economies, the Gulf countries especially. However, if current trends persist, the continued exploitation of oil resources driven by oil-dependent international interests seems more likely. Then, as the diminishing resources are slowly depleted, the fight to control the remaining oil will escalate at the expense of local populations.
As the United Nations strives to implement its 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, it must address the intricacies of climate change in the Middle East. The UN must raise awareness among the Middle East’s population about how climate change will affect the region and the threat it poses to exacerbate conflict and refugee crises. It should also link this new-found awareness with the contemporary political landscape and highlight how international dependency on oil comes at the expense of the local, as well as the global, civil society. Recognizing that the Middle East will be one of the regions most affected by climate change, the UN must hold international powers accountable and work effectively to achieve a sustainable future for the region and for the planet.
