2023: The Hottest Year on Record
In
July this year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres raised alarm when he
stated, “Climate change is here.
It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has
ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”[i]
Calling for swift climate action, the secretary-general added that “the extreme
impacts of climate change have been in line with scientists’ “predictions and
repeated warnings”, and that the “only surprise is the speed of the change.”[ii]
Indeed, climate scientists believe July 2023 was the hottest month in 120,000
years, with over 10,000 records of temperature and rainfall broken globally.[iii]
In 2015, world leaders established a goal of restricting the maximum increase
in the average global temperature to 1.5 degree Celsius above preindustrial
global temperatures as a crucial ceiling to avoid climate catastrophe; however,
in July, the average global temperature breached that level, albeit briefly.
Clearly, 2023 is on track to be the hottest year on record ever. What does this
mean for the world and how does it impact the Middle East region? This article
examines the likely impact of these changes globally in general and in the
Middle East in particular and discusses what could be the way ahead.
The
impact of the rapid increase in global temperatures is already being seen in
the form of unprecedented natural or climatic disasters such as bigger floods,
widespread droughts, intense cyclones and frequent massive forest fires in
regions where they were almost unheard of. For instance, in Europe the extreme
heat this summer led to hundreds of wildfires in Greece. While many of these
fires were put out quickly, some spread out of control, such as the one in the Alexandroupolis
and Evros regions of northeastern Greece — near the border with Turkey — which
reportedly was the biggest the European Union has ever recorded, claiming over
20 lives.[iv]
According to the European Union-backed
Copernicus Climate Change Service, firefighters from five countries battled to
contain the fire that lasted 11 days and destroyed over 800 square kilometers
of forest land — an area larger than New York City![v]
Greece was not the only location to witness such fires; earlier in the year,
wildfires in Canada razed territory equal to the size of Greece! In another
event, temperatures in excess of 51 degrees Celsius recorded in parts of
southern Iran forced the government to declare a two-day public holiday,
advising people to stay indoors.[vi]
Higher
temperatures recorded globally means that the warmer atmosphere can now hold
and deliver greater precipitation. This explains the recently recorded heavy
rains causing widespread destruction in many cities. For instance, in July,
Beijing saw the heaviest rains in 140 years, bringing the city to a halt. About
31,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes and almost 20,000 buildings
were inspected for damage while both airports in the capital cancelled more
than 200 flights.[vii]
During the same time, heavy rains resulted in massive floods in northern India,
with New Delhi recording its ‘wettest July day in more than 40 years,’[viii]
according to authorities and local reports. The rains also triggered flash
floods and landslides, killing at least 22 people, mostly in the northern state
of Himachal Pradesh. The same warm and wet conditions in the entire region in
Asia also precipitated the worst ever outbreak of Dengue fever in Bangladesh
that reportedly killed over 1,000 people and infected over 208,000,
overwhelming the country’s healthcare system.[ix]
The
above list of climatic disasters is not exhaustive and includes various other
recent disasters, such as the major floods in New York that cost the city about
$19 billion in damages[x]
and the September floods in Libya. Overall, it is clear that extreme climatic
events are becoming more intense and frequent. And many of these events, once
regarded as once-in-a-lifetime occurrences, are now recurring annually. Although
major climatic disasters have occurred in various places globally, they have
rarely been reported from the same places repeatedly. For instance, a major
heat wave in Europe last happened 500 years ago. Floods in New York were
reported once in 250 years.[xi] Furthermore,
in the United States, the number of billion-dollar disasters has increased from
two in 2002 to 18 in 2022 and 15 until July 2023. As global temperatures rise,
the chances that extreme climatic events will recur at the same location are
growing rapidly. It is likely that by 2050, many countries will experience
flood levels annually that until recently were seen once in a century.[xii]
Seeing these as isolated incidents or ‘freak events’ does not fully explain the
situation because when natural disasters occur in the same area again and again
and more frequently, the combined effects of such events can often be greater
than the sum of their parts. For instance, repeated droughts in Syria
precipitated a collapse of the economy leading to a political crisis. This is
discussed later in the article.
Approaching
a New Normal
It seems that a new normal for the climate has been established and we now need to adapt to it, particularly in the cities where more than half of the world’s population or about 4.3 billion people live. Pertinently, in the Middle East more than 80 percent of the population now lives in urban areas.[xiii] Accordingly, governments must now focus on adjusting to the new reality by upgrading infrastructure to withstand extreme weather, else the ongoing scale of climate related disasters could cause widespread damage. Already, as described above, the intensity and frequency of climate related disasters in major cities across the world such as New York, Beijing and New Delhi seems to have overwhelmed existing infrastructure efforts. While countries with poor infrastructure are likely to be impacted the most, even the ‘best prepared’ countries in the world do not seem to be ready to face climate change in the twenty-first century. Take, for instance, the Netherlands. Geographically, one-third of the country is located below sea level, with the lowest point being 6.7 meters below sea level. Yet the country has not just survived floods but continues to flourish thanks to the world’s most advanced and extensive system of dikes, pumps and artificial embankments along the coast. But in July 2006, the country witnessed its warmest month ever in its history, resulting in about 1,000 fatalities.[xiv] Since then, the Netherlands has faced several heat waves, with several deaths being reported. Evidently, no country in the world is prepared for all the vagaries of climate change.
Reaching
Tipping Points
According
to climate scientists, our greatest worry is about reaching ‘tipping points’ or
potential rapid disruptive effects that could trigger massive impacts. For
instance, the melting of ice in Greenland alone could rapidly raise sea level up
to six meters, eventually ‘drowning Miami and Manhattan and London and Shanghai
and Bangkok and Mumbai.’[xv]
Pertinently, Greenland is already losing almost a billion tons of ice daily.
Since 2014, scientists believe Greenland and the Antarctic are more vulnerable
to melting than previously known, and perhaps a tipping point has been reached
with respect to the ice sheets in Western Antarctic more than doubling its ice
loss in five years. According to Peter Brannen, an award-winning science
journalist, the last time the earth was four degrees warmer, there was no ice
at either pole and sea level was 260 feet higher![xvi]
The
other tipping point could be the melting of the Arctic permafrost, which could
lead to the release of large amounts of greenhouse gases that include methane
and carbon dioxide, which could further accelerate global warming. Significantly,
methane is far more dangerous as a GHG than carbon dioxide. Evidently, atmospheric
levels of methane have risen significantly in recent years, and a new study reveals
that by 2100, the Arctic will have released a hundred billion tons of carbon,
which is the ‘equivalent of half of all the carbon produced by humanity since industrialization
began.’[xvii]
Finally, rising global temperatures could even lead to the reversal of the Gulf
Stream, a warm current flowing from the Equatorial region to the middle
latitudes in the Atlantic Ocean. The Gulf Stream acts as a great circulatory
system that essentially regulates and modulates the temperature of the planet.
How does this work? The waters of the Gulf Stream cool off in the atmosphere of
the Norwegian Sea, making the water itself denser, which sends it down into the
bottom of the ocean. This body of water is then pushed southward by more Gulf
Stream water and melting ice from Greenland falling to the ocean floor,
replaced by warm currents flowing from the Equatorial region; the entire trip
can take a thousand years. A reversal of the Gulf Stream could be catastrophic
for large parts of Europe and North America, as it could lower temperatures by
up to 10 or 15 degrees in Europe and lead to rising sea levels in the eastern U.S.[xviii]
While precise tipping points are not yet known, scientists believe these are
not very far. The greatest worry is that each of these points could lead to a
ripple or cascading effect. For example, the melting of ice in Greenland could
dilute the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean, which could hasten the reversal of
the Gulf Stream. Clearly, there is a sense that the window to respond to or
adapt to these threats is small and that calls for urgent action by all
countries.
Based
on the above, it is evident that the world is now entering a ‘dangerous phase’
in climate change. The question is: how does it impact the MENA region, which
is already among the planet’s hottest and driest regions? According to climate
forecasts, a ‘business-as-usual’ approach to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
could lead to average global temperatures rising by over 4 degrees Celsius by
2100.’[xix] However,
since temperature changes are unevenly distributed around the planet, with some
regions experiencing more warming than others, experts warn that the MENA region
could be subjected to a temperature rise of up to 4 degrees Celsius by 2050 and
up to 7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Already, a visible pattern of
climatic distress can be seen emerging across the MENA region revealing
inherent vulnerabilities in certain countries, particularly the poorer states
with an agrarian economy as compared to the oil-rich states of the region. For
example, in 2020, heavy floods affected Egypt, Iran and Tunisia while in the
same year, wildfires spread in Lebanon, Syria and Turkeye. The next summer
brought a crippling drought in Iraq and Syria – its worst in 70 years. It
really can’t be a coincidence that many of these countries are also facing
internal political turmoil. For instance, Syria spiraled into civil war in
2011, following a major drought from 2006 to 2010, which triggered a collapse
of the agricultural economy, resulting in the mass migration of millions of
refugees across the region.[xx]
Manifestly, repeated climatic disasters in the same place have a multiplier
effect making a bad situation worse as noted by the U.S. president Barack Obama
who stated: “Climate change helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which
descended into civil war.”
Evidently, there is a link between climate change and security. According to the World Economic Forum report on global risks, climate action failure can lead to extreme weather events that could cause food and water shortages, leading to mass migrations, which would potentially lead to interstate border conflicts, and so on. The following chart shows how each threat is closely related.
