Impact on the region
With the consequences of climate change amplifying the region’s instability, countries must acknowledge the perils and act to mitigate them. Droughts and water scarcity, excessive heat and global warming, increased dust storms, degrading air quality, and rises in sea level are some of the byproducts of climate change. Countries currently in conflict or enduring post-conflict transitions are now facing the harsh realities of disruptive and multiplying country-wide issues.
While the region continues to struggle to cope with the impact of a growing youth bulge, unstable governments, volatile natural resource prices, the ramifications of the pandemic, and international conflicts, climate change adds further socio-economic pressures.
As global ecosystems attempt to keep pace with climate instability, enabling a Net-Zero economy in the region will play a vital role in reducing societal deficiencies.
Water Scarcity
As water scarcity runs rampant across the region, it is reported that approximately 9 out 10 children in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region live in high or extremely high-water scarce areas. This has serious consequences on children’s health, nutrition, cognitive development, and future livelihoods. With climate change being one of the main contributors to water scarcity, an additional factor to this issue is the widespread conflict in the region, resulting in growing populations migrating from urban to rural areas. This highlights the underlying water management issues and deteriorating infrastructure that strain water supply resulting in water insecurity.
Climate change also leads to the decrease of annual rainfall levels impacting the agricultural sector and deteriorating fresh water reserves due to the movement of saline water into freshwater aquifers. In addition, polluting substances can spill over into fresh water sources thus impacting overall water quality.
Air Quality
Climate change can impact air quality and conversely, air quality can impact climate change. Pollutants emitted into the air can result in changes to the climate. Burning fossil fuels releases gases and chemicals into the atmosphere, which become trapped causing mean global temperatures to rise. In addition, climate change increases the level of allergenic air pollutants, including mold, due to damp conditions.
It is recorded that air pollution levels in MENA’s largest cities are among the highest in the world. On average, urban residents breathe in more than ten times the level of pollutants considered safe by the World Health Organization. Additionally, according to the World Bank Group’s report titled, Blue Skies, Blue Seas: Air Pollution, Marine Plastics, and Coastal Erosion in the Middle East and North Africa, air pollution causes approximately 270,000 deaths annually, exceeding the number of fatalities from traffic accidents, diabetes, malaria TB, HIV/AIDS and acute hepatitis combined. Residents in the MENA region are also on average ill at least 60 days in their lifetime due to exposure to elevated air pollution. Reduced air quality impacts the economy in various ways, increasing rates of asthma, chronic respiratory diseases or diabetes, which leads to a reduced ability to work and lower participation rates in the labor force.
Global warming
The Earth’s climate is warming up gradually as a result of increasing greenhouse gases becoming trapped inside the atmosphere. Unstable temperature levels increase the frequency of many types of natural disasters, including storms, floods, heat waves and droughts. Such events impact the lives of millions, jeopardizing food security, destroying urban infrastructure, and leading to inhabitable environments.
With an average of 70% of the agricultural production in the region relying mainly on rainfall, the sector is vulnerable to fluctuating temperatures. Thus, global warming places substantial pressure on crops that face minimal water resources. This leads to increased vulnerability for rural farmers, potentially increasing migration and displacement. Sudan demonstrates the negative impact of climate change as irregular rain in addition to increased droughts and flooding have led to land becoming unsuitable for cultivation. This has resulted in the displacement of 600,000 people since 2013 and is estimated to impact an additional 1.9 million people. 70% of Sudan’s rural farmers rely on livestock production and agriculture, highlighting the vulnerability of this population.
Sea level rising
The MENA region is one of the most vulnerable regions to rising sea levels caused by climate change. Several areas in the region have already begun experiencing periodic floods. Alexandria, one of the low-lying coastal cities in Egypt located on the Nile delta, is at serious risk of being submerged in the next three decades as cities built on deltas are usually more susceptible to storms and rain-induced river floods. Additionally, Basra, a low-lying coastal city next to the Tigris and Euphrates river in Iraq, has been facing seasonal flooding in recent years from the rivers and increases of the sea-level.
According to studies, the mean global sea level is set to rise 30–122 centimeters by the end of the century, endangering more than a dozen global cities and populations. Rising sea-levels encroach on urbanized lands, triggering large-scale population migration that can result in a surge of social and political instability and worsening refugee crises.
Given the pressing risks of climate instability within the region, some governments in the MENA region have made pledges to mitigate global warming through a transition to renewable energy and green technologies, and some have already taken steps in that direction with a goal to achieve a Net-Zero economy.