The Middle East is facing a major challenge from the effects of climate change. While all regions around the globe are dealing with climate change, the Middle East has been hit particularly hard. Some experts are even saying that the region could become uninhabitable by humans if something isn’t done soon. How exactly is climate change damaging the Middle East, and what can Middle Eastern governments do to meet this challenge? Here’s what you need to know.
How Does Climate Change Affect the Middle East?
The entire planet has witnessed rising temperatures over the last couple of decades, but the Middle East region has been impacted the most. Temperatures throughout the Middle East are rising at twice the rate of other regions on Earth. A recent study projected an increase in average temperature of 9 degrees Fahrenheit in the region by the end of this century.
Water resources around the Middle East are being depleted much faster than they can be naturally replaced, and the rising temperatures are making the situation worse. Another problem is the effect of these higher temperatures on plant and animal life. Desertification has made many areas unsuitable for farming and eliminated entire species of native plants and animals. Access to water has been a catalyst for rising unrest among peoples throughout the Middle East. International tensions have risen over the diverting of precious water resources.
What Is Contributing to Climate Change in the Region?
A key contributor to climate change in the region is the use of fossil fuels by Middle Eastern nations. In fact, the Middle East now produces more greenhouse gases than the European Union or India. Those regions have been gradually reducing emissions, but the Middle East has not made any significant reduction in greenhouse gases in recent years. One reason is that many countries in the region have vast reserves of fossil fuels, i.e. oil, that they drill for both domestic consumption and export. Entire economies are based around the fossil fuel industry, and it is far cheaper to use oil for energy than to transition to more sustainable materials.
Migration has increased, with many people leaving the almost uninhabitable rural regions for refuge in the cities. Continued population growth in the region has stretched already inadequate water resources to their breaking point, and food shortages are becoming common as a result. Many experts fear that the underlying tensions may boil over into overt conflict both between and within nations of the region.
What Can Be Done by Middle Eastern Governments to Address Climate Change?
Some of the wealthier Gulf States, like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, have invested billions of dollars to search for solutions. Many of their efforts have centered around addressing the issue of water scarcity. Some nations have tried large-scale desalination to turn the abundant seawater into freshwater. Others have tested innovative farming methods to both increase food production and reduce water waste. There has been a trend toward moving water away from agricultural projects and diverting those resources to human consumption.
These projects have seen differing levels of success, but they are all attempts to deal with the short-term devastation caused by climate change. What is required is more resources devoted to dealing directly with the factors that are causing climate change. There are many ways that this can be accomplished. One is to pursue digitalization. The World Economic Forum has said that widespread adoption of digital technologies has the potential to reduce global emissions by 15 percent. The UAE has begun to lead the way in the region toward digitalization, but others must follow.
Interregional cooperation among nations is essential to prevent further ecological damage and calm rising tensions. Nations need to work together to ensure that their internal water projects do not adversely affect their neighbors. All nations in the region are committed to the Paris agreements to reduce carbon emissions, and they will need to assign sufficient resources to meet those goals.
Lastly, all Middle Eastern nations must increase their funding for climate research. The best way to find solutions to this problem is to create multinational organizations that can pool the best talent from many Middle Eastern nations to tackle the climate problem. This requires mutual trust and cooperation, but it will lead to the best minds collaborating on an issue that threatens the lives and well-being of all the peoples of the Middle East.