Greenhouse gas emissions have more than tripled in the region over the last three decades and caused concern among experts that a steep rise in temperatures on the one hand and lack of basic services on the other are making the region a more desperate and dangerous place. Experts say political and economic reforms that strengthen institutions and promote businesses to think freely are essential to reduce carbon emissions and ensure a shift to clean energy in the Middle East. These countries are ruled by ineffective governments, autocrats, or clerics and have dilapidated energy infrastructure and deep-rooted structural deficiencies that block the promotion of and technological innovation in renewable energy. Since the region is split between haves and have-nots, it is the poorer cousins of the oil-rich countries that have been the first to face social disorder over the lack of basic amenities, such as water and electricity, that people desperately need to survive the extreme heat.
And the region, ravaged by war and mired in sectarianism, may be singularly ill-prepared to face the challenges that threaten its collective existence. According to Germany’s Max Planck Institute, many cities in the Middle East may literally become uninhabitable before the end of the century. The World Bank says extreme climatic conditions will become routine and the region could face four months of scorching sun every year. The Middle East is warming at twice the global average and by 2050 will be 4 degrees Celsius warmer as compared with the 1.5 degree mark that scientists have prescribed to save humanity. Worst of all, this is just the start of a trend. A month later, temperatures in Iraq spiked to 51.5 degrees (124.7 degrees), and Iran recorded a close 51 degrees (123.8 degrees). In June, Kuwait recorded a temperature of 53.2 degrees Celsius (127.76 degrees Fahrenheit), while Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia all recorded over 50 degrees (122 degrees). As extreme temperatures and severe droughts ravaged the region, forests burned, and cities became islands of unbearable heat. This summer, several picturesque countries in the Middle East became tinderboxes.
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