The World Bank Report "Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal" has been published on November 23, 2014.
Click here to read the executive summary.
Click here to read the full report.
The OT-Med postdoctoral fellow, Marianela Fader (IMBE), contributed to the chapter about the Middle East and North Africa region. This chapter includes impacts related to agriculture, desertification, human health, migration and security, coastal infrastructure, tourism and energy systems. Other chapters include climate change trends and impacts in Latin-America and the Caribbean as well as in Europe and Central Asia.
Here is the summary of the chapter "The Middle East and North Africa" by Marianela Fader.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is one of the most diverse regions in the world in economic terms, with per-capita annual GDP ranging from US$ 1000 in Yemen to more than US$ 20,000 in the Arab Gulf States. In consequence, adaptive capacity and vulnerability to climate risks varies enormously within the region. The region´s population is projected to double by 2050, which together with projected climate impacts, puts the region under enormous pressure for resources, in particular water. The region is at present already highly dependent on food imports. Approximately 50% of regional wheat and barley consumption, 40% of rice consumption, and nearly 70% of corn consumption is met through imports. The region has coped with its water scarcity through a variety of means: abstraction of groundwater, desalinization plants, and local coping strategies by communities. However, despite its extreme water scarcity, the Arab region uses more water per capita than the global average.
The MENA region is one of the world's most vulnerable regions to climate change in combination with other pressures. It emerges as one of the hotspots for worsening extreme heat, drought and aridity conditions under climate change. In particular, agriculture, 70% of which is rain-fed, is highly exposed to changing climatic conditions. Deteriorating rural livelihoods associated with declining agricultural productivity are contributing to migration flows, often to urban areas. Impacts are high in a 2°C world, as annual water discharge, already critically low, is projected to drop by another 15-45% and unusual heat extremes projected to affect about a third of the land area with likely consequences for local food production. The region could be heavily challenged by both rising agricultural and water demand, particularly given its simultaneously high import dependency which makes it vulnerable to effects well beyond its country borders. A severe and sustained pressure on resources could contribute to further social unrest in the already unstable political environment that currently characterizes parts of the region. Whilst the particular societal responses to such changes remain hard to predict, it is clear that extreme impacts such as a decrease in annual water discharge of 75% projected for a 4°C world would constitute unprecedented challenges to the social systems affected.
A selection of the projected impact cascades is given in the following Development Narratives.
Changing precipitation patterns and an increase in extreme heat pose high risks to agricultural production and regional food security.
Rainfall is predicted to decline– by 20-40% in a 2°C world and by up to 60% in a 4°C world. The resulting increase in irrigation water demand will be difficult to meet, due to the simultaneously decrease in water availability. Water scarcity in combination with higher temperatures will lead to a deviation from the temperature optima of several crops and in return to a drop in agricultural productivity. As a result, crop yields in the region may decrease by up to 30% at 1.5-2°C in Jordan, Egypt and Libya warming and by almost 60% at 3-4°C for wheat in Syria. Strongest crop reductions are expected for legumes and maize as they are grown during the summer period.
Rising food prices, which often follow production shocks and long-term declines, make the growing number of urban poor in the MENA region increasingly vulnerable to malnutrition. Poor rural farmers are also vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition as a direct consequence of yield loss and this could trigger further urban migration.
Heat extremes will pose a significant challenge for public health across the region.
A substantial rise in unusual heat extremes is expected in the coming decades. In a 2°C world, unusual heat extremes would occur on average in one of the summer months in each year from the 2040s onwards. In a 4°C world, this frequency would be experienced as early as the 2030s and would increase to two summer months by the 2060s and virtually all months by the end of the century.
Consequently, the period of consecutive hot days with is expected to increase, particularly in cities due to the urban heat island effect.
Evidence from other regions indicates that heat stress can approach physiological limits of people and severely undermine regional labor productivity, putting a burden on health infrastructure (especially vulnerable are the elderly, people with chronic disease or obesity, as well as pregnant women, children and people working outside). For instance, the relative risk of diarrheal disease as a consequence of climatic changes and deteriorating water quality is expected to increase 6-14% for the period 2010-39 and 16-38% for the period 2070-99 in North Africa; and 6-15% and 17-41%, respectively, in the Middle East.
Sea-level rise will pose serious challenges to the region's population, infrastructure and economic assets in coastal cities.
Depending on the city, sea levels are projected to rise by 0.34 – 0.39m in a 1.5°C world and 0.56 – 0.64m in a 4°C world (medium estimate), with the highest estimate reaching 1.04m in the case of Muscat.
The Maghreb countries of Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya have been identified as among the most exposed African countries in terms of total population affected by sea-level rise. For example, Alexandria, Benghazi, and Algiers have been identified as particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise of only 0.2m by 2050.
Key impacts of climate change in coastal zones include inundation resulting from slow onset sea-level rise, floods and damages caused by extreme events including storms and storm surges, and increased coastal erosion with repercussions for the tourism sector, among others.
Impacts on groundwater are also significant (especially vulnerable to salinization is the Nile Delta, home to more than 35 million people and providing 63% of the agricultural production of Egypt).
Climate change might act as a threat multiplier for the security situation in the MENA region by imposing additional pressure on already scarce resources and by reinforcing pre-existing threats connected to migration following forced displacement.
Serious threats may emerge as water scarcity increases competition.Such issues may particularly come to bear where resource dependency exists across borders as is the case for Egypt, Syria, and Iraq who depend on upstream countries for their water supply. However, the literature on the security implications of climate change remains inconclusive.
Additional external pressures are imposed by migration following forced displacement. In particular, the Maghreb countries serve as receiving and transit countries for Sahelian and other Sub-Saharan African migrants.
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Figure 1.3:Projected unusual heat extremes in a 2°C (left) and a 4°C world (right) in 2071-2099 compared to 1951-1980.
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