The World Bank, in cooperation with Qatar, launched a regional report on “Adapting to a Changing Climate in the Arab Countries”. The report, which was prepared over a period of two years, serves as an umbrella document to dealing with climate change in the Arab region, and is expected to provide material for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change scheduled to be published in 2013-2014, thus providing full coverage of Arab countries. This report and its related activities are intended to help decision makers in the Arab countires to gear efforts aiming to cope with the adverse consequences of climate change.
The report indicates that the first settlements in the world, including cities and farming communities, began in our Arab region, the inhabitants of which invented various ways to respond to the changing climate. For thousands of years, the people of this region have coped with the challenges of climate variability by adapting their survival strategies to changes in rainfall and temperature. But the report has a clear message: over the next century this changes will increase and the climate in Arab countries will experience unprecedented extremes. Temperatures will reach new highs, and in most places there will be less rainfall. Water availability will be reduced, and with a growing population, the already water-scarce region may not have sufficient supplies to irrigate crops, support industry, or provide drinking water.
In many cases, climate change is bringing attention to issues that were previously overlooked. For example, low quality urban drainage systems have contributed to flooding in some Arab cities, and the threat of more flooding from climate change could be the impetus needed to finally improve this infrastructure. In rural areas, climate change is forcing communities to rethink long-standing gender roles that have perpetuated gender inequality. As a result, climate change presents many opportunities, not only to reduce vulnerability, but also to contribute to greater long-term development.
Arab countries’ dewellers and policymakers have already experienced the effects of a changing climate: higher temperatures and extreme events such as drought and flash floods, which may well become the new norm.The report indicates that “the year 2010 was the warmest since the late 1800s, when the data collection began, with 19 countries setting new national temperature highs. Five of these were Arab countries, including Kuwait, which set a record high of 52.6°C in 2010, only to be followed by 53.5°C in 2011.”
Water scarcity will increasingly be a challenge the Arab countries. The Arab region has the lowest freshwater resource endowment in the world. All but six Arab countries (The Comors, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and Syria) suffer from water scarcity, which is a defined threshold of 1000 cubic meter per person per year. It is estimated that climate change will reduce water runoff by 10 percent by 2050. Currently, the region suffers a water deficit (demand is greater than supply), and with increasing populations and per capita water use, demand is projected to increase further, by 60 percent, by 2045.
Climate change will likely reduce agricultural production in Arab countries. Projections suggest that the rate of increase in agricultural production will slow over the next few decades, and it may start to decline after about 2050. As for urban centers where 56% of Arab people live, flash flooding will be increasing in cities across the region as a result of more intense rainfall events, concrete surfaces that do not absorb water, inadequate and blocked drainage systems, and increased construction in low-lying areas and vallies. The number of people affected by flash floods has doubled over the last ten years to 500,000 people across the region.
Climate change threatens tourism, an important source of revenue and jobs. Tourism today contributes about US$50 billion per year to the Arab region, which is about 3 percent of its total gross domestic product (GDP), and the tourism sector is projected to grow by about 3.3 percent per year for the next 20 years. It is also an important sector for jobs, because roughly 6 percent of the region’s employment is related to tourism.
Climate change threatens progress to achieve gender equity in the Arab region. Men and women possess unique vulnerabilities to climate change impacts, largely based on their respective roles in society. However, in the majority of cases, rural women tend to be vulnerable in more ways than are rural men. Climate change will further affect rural livelihoods, and more men will feel obligated to move to cities to seek paid employment, which is mostly unskilled and temporary, with little security, low wages, crowded living conditions, and poor health support. As a result, on top of their already heavy workload of domestic tasks and local natural resource management, rural women assume the departed male’s community role, but with additional challenges.
The impacts of climate change on human health are varied and often indirect. Higher temperatures are known to lead directly to increased morbidity (deaths) through heat stress and indirectly to strokes and heart-related deaths. Warmer conditions also affect the geographic range of disease vectors, such as mosquitoes. A warmer climate will expose human populations to new diseases, such as malaria and dengue, for which they are unprepared. In the Arab region, disruptions to existing agricultural practices will lead to more widespread malnutrition, because of higher food prices and greater exposure to diseases and other health problems—especially if greater migration to unsanitary, informal settlements is triggered. The impacts of malnutrition on children are particularly troublesome because they lead not only to increased child mortality, but also to developmental and long-term physical and mental impediments.
This report can be used as a road map, as it seeks to provide, for the first time, a coherent assessment of the implications of climate change to the Arab region and the resultant risks, opportunities, and actions needed. The information highlighted within explains the potential impacts of climate change and the adaptation responses needed in key sectors such as water, agriculture, tourism, gender, and health, as well as in urban and rural settings. This report attempts to advance the discussion by providing adaptation guidance to policy makers in Arab countries. It does this in three ways. First, it proposes the Adaptation Pyramid Framework on how to move forward on this agenda. Second, it presents a typology of policy approaches relevant to the region, which would facilitate effective policy responses by decision makers. Third, a matrix is provided, which outlines key policy recommendations from each of the chapters.