Janine di Giovanni is executive director at The Reckoning Project and a columnist for The National
November 07, 2021
When in less than a fortnight Cop26 ends in Glasgow, and the diplomats and climate change experts go home having pledged to end deforestation in 10 years, their thoughts should also turn towards the Middle East, where global warming is occurring faster than the global average.
If last summer was an example, the region could become uninhabitable in the years to come. Temperatures in Kuwait this June reached 53.2°C, a figure unfathomable to some. Iran, Iraq and Oman also reported scorching temperatures.
Then there were blazing fires in forests or in resorts, such as in Turkey’s southern coast; terrible droughts; cities so hot that it was impossible for people to leave their homes. There is also another major worry – the naturally arid Middle East is not best equipped to cope with these fluctuations in temperature.
During a visit to Gaza last August, I noticed the stifling heat was far worse than on any other summer visit I have experienced over the past few decades. When I stepped outside my hotel, the sun was blistering. Car rides were sweltering. The refugee camps, where most of Gaza’s inhabitants live, were unbearable. The World Bank is predicting that for four months a year, the Middle East will face this kind of heat – and it will last for longer periods of time, making some areas uninhabitable.
Solar panels on the roof of buildings in the Al-Shati refugee camp area in Gaza City, Gaza, on October 8. Bloomberg
It’s not too bad if you can afford air conditioning or live in a place where electricity and water are plentiful. But in places such as Gaza, that is next to impossible. Equally vulnerable are the camps and settlements for the millions of displaced people in northern Iraq or the refugees who fled the Syrian war and are still in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt. For the people most at risk, climate change is a tangible rather than an existential threat. It will become increasingly hard to live in some of these places.
Take Iraq as an example. The UN marks Iraq as one of the most vulnerable countries on the planet, where 31 per cent of the surface is desert. Years of inappropriate farming as well as water mismanagement have exacerbated an already dry climate. In areas such as the Nineveh Plain, an important breadbasket, many people rely on farming. Yet the results of climate change are, evident as they are, will be even more disastrous in years to come. It doesn’t help that the Islamic State deliberately damaged irrigation sources when they rolled through in 2014.
A boy shepherds camels near Al Karamah Dam in Shouneh, Jordan. Reuters
The World Bank also cites these kind of drastic temperature rises will cause severe damage to crops. Scare water sources will mean more uninhabitable places. It also means increased migration and the potential for more conflicts arising. Demographic growth puts further strain on resources.
Unicef gives some grim statistics on how population changes will put more strain on requirements for water and agricultural output. In Iraq, between 1970 and 2007, the population tripled to 30 million. What will access to water be like in the future? Already, 21 per cent of the population has no access to safe drinking water sources. A recent World Bank report cites: “With rainfall projected to decline by 20 to 40 per cent in a 2°C hotter world, and up to 60 per cent in a 4°C world, the region’s capacity to provide water to its people and economies will be harshly tested.”
Can all this lead to more conflict? The evidence points to a bleak future. Several climate change experts are looking at the links between climate change and future conflicts and how they can be prevented. Conflicts escalating because of water rights could rise around the globe, leading to post-apocalyptic sounding “water wars", where people will fight over water to survive. The Tigris-Euphrates as well as the Nile are both pinpointed crisis areas. And researchers have linked the Syrian conflict to the 2006-2009 drought made worse by climate change. It is one of the strongest links yet that between climate change and human conflict.
Ibrahim Dabale, 50, a native and art guardian, walks along a path on the hillsides as he guides visitors to the remote Abourma Rock Art site, on a rocky outcrop in the Tadjoura region of northern Djibouti. AFP
So what can be done? The World Bank advises that disaster risk assessments need to be established, and fast. After their 2008-2011 drought, Djibouti began carrying out world’s first Post-Disaster Needs Assessment. They set up more risk-management laboratories and knowledge centres, which teach people how to manage the crisis – as well as investing in protective infrastructure. Djibouti also rehabilitated the dyke that protected people from a flood-prone wadi. It has also performed seismic and floods risk/vulnerability assessments and established a flood early warning system.
These kind of centres should be established throughout the region, and the UN should help out, too – by expanding their Green Climate Fund to the more vulnerable parts of the Mena region, especially when it comes to water, agriculture and food scarcity.
The biggest worry for the Middle East is that climate change can make some governments less equipped to handle civil unrest. This may be true even for countries that are resource-rich but poorly governed, such as Libya. Over the past decade, militias have been fighting to control the oil infrastructure amid a raging civil war.
At one point, we assumed climate change would be too far in the future. We now know it is a matter of decades – and in the Middle East, we are already feeling the impact.
Policies adopted today – as a result of global gatherings such as Cop26 – can begin to reverse that. Let’s hope when the dust settles from the Glasgow conference, the Middle East will be a priority.
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Brad Stanton v Mohamed El Boukhari (Super welterweight
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1799 - First small pox vaccine administered
1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery
1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases
1895 - Discovery of x-rays
1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1953 - Structure of DNA discovered
1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place
1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill
1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.
1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out
Sole survivors
Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Launched: 2008
Categories: Health, energy, water, food, global high schools
Prize: Dh2.2 million (Dh360,000 for global high schools category)
Winners’ announcement: Monday, January 13
Impact in numbers
335 million people positively impacted by projects
430,000 jobs created
10 million people given access to clean and affordable drinking water
50 million homes powered by renewable energy
6.5 billion litres of water saved
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THE BIO
Age: 30
Favourite book: The Power of Habit
Favourite quote: "The world is full of good people, if you cannot find one, be one"
Favourite exercise: The snatch
Favourite colour: Blue
Company profile
Name: GiftBag.ae
Based: Dubai
Founded: 2011
Number of employees: 4
Sector: E-commerce
Funding: Self-funded to date
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024. It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine. Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages]. The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts. With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians. Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved. Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world. The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
180ml extra virgin olive oil; 4 to 5 large cloves of garlic, minced or pureed (or 3 to 4 garlic scapes, roughly chopped); 1 or 2 small hot red chillies, dried (or ¼ teaspoon dried red chilli flakes); 400g raw prawns, deveined, heads removed and tails left intact; a generous splash of sweet chilli vinegar; sea salt flakes for seasoning; a small handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
Method
▶ Heat the oil in a terracotta dish or frying pan. Once the oil is sizzling hot, add the garlic and chilli, stirring continuously for about 10 seconds until golden and aromatic.
▶ Add a splash of sweet chilli vinegar and as it vigorously simmers, releasing perfumed aromas, add the prawns and cook, stirring a few times.
▶ Once the prawns turn pink, after 1 or 2 minutes of cooking, remove from the heat and season with sea salt flakes.
▶ Once the prawns are cool enough to eat, scatter with parsley and serve with small forks or toothpicks as the perfect sharing starter. Finish off with crusty bread to soak up all that flavour-infused olive oil.
