A Region With Big Climate Vulnerability and Bigger Distractions
Source: New York Times, 6/23/2011
NYT highlights climate concerns specific to the Middle East and North Africa
By: Lisa Friedman
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the water-scarce and thirsty Middle East is considered one of the regions of the world most vulnerable to climate change impacts. If temperatures increase up to 4 degrees Celsius by 2050, the result could be a 20 to 30 percent water drop-off in countries spanning North Africa and the Mediterranean.
According the World Bank, that could mean as many as 100 million people exposed to water stress. Meanwhile, in urban parts of North Africa, researchers predict that a temperature increase of up to 3 degrees could expose up to 25 million people to flooding.
A recent study on climate change vulnerability rankings from the Center for Global Development found that five Middle Eastern and North African countries ranked in the top 20 at risk from sea level rise by 2050. They are: Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
Yet the body of scientific work examining the Middle East and North Africa remains thin, particularly compared to vast studies that have been done in South Asia and Africa. Some chalk up the disparity to the fact that the Middle East is literally betwixt and between. Partially in Asia and partially in Africa, countries in the region are often divided in official U.N. research and not given attention as a whole.
But the other reality, said Josh Busby, an assistant professor at the University of Texas, Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs who has studied climate and conflict in North Africa, is that many governments in the region don’t have the government and scientific apparatus to support climate research. That’s particularly true now as countries like Egypt and Tunisia try to find their balance post-revolution and protests continue to be met with state violence in places like Yemen and Syria.
