Climate Change in the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities

Due to their geographical location and climate conditions, Arab states have some of the highest wind and solar energy capacities in the world. Given that 80% of energy-related jobs are projected to be in the field of renewable energy by 2050,¹ the region has the potential to emerge as a major player in the field over the coming years by supporting global climate mitigation efforts while simultaneously creating employment opportunities for its young and growing population. Increased awareness of this region-wide potential can usher in a new era for Arab states to work more collectively on advancing joint sustainability efforts. With Egypt hosting COP27 this year, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hosting COP28 in 2023, the time could not be more pressing and opportune.

This essay examines the unique challenges facing the region on the climate front, and, considering the sociopolitical contexts that they operate in, discusses how persistent obstacles can be reframed and strategically managed to create bigger growth opportunities for Arab states.

Challenges

The Arab world, which consists of 22 countries that geographically spread over West Asia and North Africa, is home to a population of around 436 million inhabitants, nearly 34% of whom are between 15 and 34 years old.² Despite its large population, the region has historically contributed very little to global carbon emissions. According to the World Resources Institute, the European Union alongside nine other countries, including the United States, China, Russia, and India, are responsible for two thirds of the global emissions.³ Furthermore, the cumulative net of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions per region between the years 1850 and 2019 shows that Arab countries from West Asia are responsible for only 2%, which is significantly lower than the emissions from North America (23%) and Europe (16%).⁴

And yet, the region is facing, and will continue to face, drastic consequences of the changing climate, more so than other parts of the world. In fact, the region is warming at twice the global average, and by 2050, it is expected to be 4°C warmer, which is considerably higher than the Paris Climate Agreement target of 1.5°C.⁵ In the face of a 4°C warmer climate, the most pressing challenges facing the region today are interlinked, and primarily include water scarcity, increasing temperatures, sea level rises, and climate migration. These ecological threats are alarming, and must prompt urgent action by policymakers and non-state actors, at both a regional and individual state level.

West Asia and North Africa is by far the most water-stressed region in the world. Of the 17 most water-stressed countries in the world, 11 are Arab states.⁶ Rapid population growth and urbanization is putting increased pressure on already scarce natural water resources. In fact, inhabitants of the region are the largest daily consumers of water per capita in the world, particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, where the average daily water usage per capita is around 560 liter.⁷ Combined with a decline of precipitations and more frequent droughts, climate change will severely test the region’s capacity to provide water to its people and industries, as rainfalls in the region are projected to decline by 20 to 40% in a 2°C hotter world.⁸

This issue is especially worrisome because agricultural production in the region is 70% rain-fed,⁹ and takes up 85% of water resources.¹⁰ It is estimated that crop yields could decrease by up to 30% in a 2°C warmer world, and by almost 60% in a 4°C warmer world.¹¹ As rainfall becomes scarce and less predictable due to a changing climate, it will directly impact the agriculture sector in Arab states, as well as the rural communities that will be hit the hardest by the resulting loss of crops and livestock. All these factors will create a nexus of challenges that will have long-term negative impacts, like food insecurity and rapid urbanization.

Regional climate models show that these effects will only get worse, with the strongest impacts felt in the summer months (June-August), which are already known to reach incredibly high temperatures. By 2050, even if the average global temperature rise is limited to 2°C, the region will see an increase in average summer temperatures of about 4°C – twice the global average.¹² Similar to the effects of water scarcity, heatwaves can encourage rapid urbanization by disrupting the ecological and floral patterns that agricultural industries depend on, which lead rural communities to relocate to industrialized cities in search of employment. The over-concentration of the population in urban areas intensifies human-induced warming locally, creating a cyclic effect that increases the severity of heatwaves over time.

This phenomenon can already be observed in the Mediterranean areas of the wider region, where the population quadrupled between 1960 and 2015, and the degree of urbanization has risen from 35% to 64%.¹³ The Mediterranean has also experienced significant climate variability over recent decades, and has been affected in particular by severe heatwaves and droughts.¹⁴ The increasing summer temperatures in the coming years will heighten the frequency and intensity of such extreme events, causing additional environmental and socio-economic pressure on the region.

Another ecological threat that would be exacerbated by increasing temperatures is sea level rise, which has severe implications for coastal cities, agriculture, and other geography-dependent sectors such as tourism. In a 1.5°C warmer planet, for instance, cities like Tunis (on the Mediterranean sea coast), Tangier (on the Atlantic coast), and Muscat (on the Arabian sea coast) will experience sea level rises between 0.2 meter and 0.5 meter by the end of the century.¹⁵ In the case of a planet warmer by 4°C in the future, sea levels for the mentioned cities are projected to be around 1 meter.¹⁶ The rising sea levels, combined with storm surge and irregular rainfall, will make flooding more probable, putting over 100 million people at risk in coastal cities by 2030, and causing damage to coastal infrastructure that is projected to be around billions of dollars. ¹⁷

These ecological threats will have severe sociopolitical implications. It is likely that the impact of climate change on water scarcity, the increase in regional temperatures, and sea level rises will drive people from the Arab region out of their communities in search for more livable conditions. Consequently, mass climate migration will put pressure on systems across the wider region, including food and water resources. In fact, the World Bank estimates that by 2050, there will be more than 200 million climate migrants globally.¹⁸ 6% of the total North African population is projected to become climate migrants, which corresponds to nearly 13 million people from the region in search of a new location where they can find food, water, and jobs due to climate-induced displacement.¹⁹

Opportunities

The realities are jarring, which is why the opportunities climate change adaption can bring about need to be evaluated with realistic optimism that focuses on a sustainability framework tailored to the socio-economic context of the region. Notably, the region’s development has been heavily dependent on fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) for energy, with states broadly falling into two groups: countries that are fossil-fuel rich (e.g. Iraq, Kuwait, and Libya) and countries that import fossil fuels for their domestic energy needs (e.g. Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia). When it comes to collective renewable energy, however, the region is trailing behind from the rest of the world. The electricity production of the region from renewable sources (excluding hydroelectricity) represents only 0.5% of all production.²⁰ That percentage must be increased for the transition to a more resilient low-carbon economy, and the region should take advantage of its wind and solar energy potentials to lower greenhouse gas emissions and to produce exportable low-carbon energy.

The first group of fossil-fuel rich nations can focus on creating value and expertise, and becoming global leaders in renewables and low-carbon energy. For example, the United Arab Emirates has already established its leadership position on this front, and has taken the lead in switching to renewable energy for domestic use while helping other countries to do the same. The UAE has also recently announced its national initiative to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, making it the first nation in the Arab region to do so.²¹ In addition, Dubai is home to the largest single-site solar power plant in the world, with a targeted capacity of 5GW by 2030.²² This early adoption of renewable energy made the UAE an expert in the field of renewables, allowing it to support other nations in the wider region, such as Iraq²³ and Egypt,²⁴ in establishing renewable energy capacities for their national energy needs. This is the kind of sustainability cooperation that should be more amplified and promoted at a wider pan-Arab level.

For the latter group of countries, accelerating the switch to renewable energy is not only the more sustainable option in the long run, but it also represents great economic opportunities as well. For these reasons, some oil-importing countries in the region have already started making the shift to renewable energy sources. Up until recently, for example, Morocco was generating 90% of its energy from imported fossil fuels.²⁵ Now, Morocco is building the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant as part of its national strategy to produce more than 50% of its energy needs by 2030 from renewable energy sources, and is working closely with the UAE to achieve this.²⁶ This shift will lighten the financial and environmental burden of importing and using fossil fuels for Morocco, and presents a model for other countries in the region to follow suit.

For both groups, switching to renewable energy would also see employment in the energy sector dramatically expand. In addition to technical jobs that would be created, such as in engineering, equipment operation, and machinery, the transition to a low-carbon economy would open new positions in designing, managing, and strategizing for the generation and transmission of renewable energy. State universities across the Arab world can further support employment in renewable energy by launching programs that train students for the field, both in technical and non-technical jobs. More accredited majors and minors need to be offered as well, which will enable the region to produce sustainability solutions that are tailored to its unique challenges, as opposed to importing best practices and generalized models from other parts of the world.

This can create a much-needed opportunity for Arab youth, which represent more than 34% of the population (ages 15-34) in a region where youth unemployment is almost twice the global average.²⁷ In this way, transitioning towards a low-carbon economy can create opportunities for Arab states to lower unemployment rates in the near future, especially for its youth population. 

Conclusion

Although climate change does not acknowledge national borders, each region is and will be affected differently depending on its geographical characteristics and nuanced contexts. The Arab region is particularly at-risk of severe climate conditions, but there is also great potential for a collective transition to renewable energies, and for increased multilateral collaboration at the pan-Arab front to address climate change.

With COP27 and COP28 coming up, hosted in Egypt and the UAE respectively, there is no better time to launch a wider range of sustainability initiatives between Arab states, and pave the way for climate mitigation and adaptation led by the region, and for the region.

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The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author, and do not represent Fiker Institute.