But there is much more that they can do at home. Given the pressing risks of climate effects in the region, a number of MENA governments have made pledges to mitigate global warming through a transition to renewable energy and green technologies, and some have already taken steps in that direction. In cases of previous wars and political unrest in the MENA region, most scholars find that climate change is at most one variable among a multitude of more directly contributing factors, including endemic corruption, authoritarianism, economic exclusion, demographic pressures, and other governance maladies.įrederic Wehrey is a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on governance, conflict, and security in Libya, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf.
Yet the reality is more complex than the dark prognostications of some so-called climate determinists. The likelihood of new violent conflict directly triggered or aggravated by climate change in the MENA region is an oft-cited and oft-sensationalized effect. Water scarcity has been the most headline-grabbing effect of climate change in the MENA area: the region has been consistently described by experts as “the world’s most water-stressed.” Rising temperatures and their pernicious effects on health and productivity, desertification, population movements (both within the region and from elsewhere), and food insecurity are other climate effects projected to impact MENA inhabitants, especially those in rural areas and urban peripheries, migrants and refugees, informal sector workers, and other vulnerable communities. For countries already grappling with the fallout from the pandemic, civil wars and conflict-induced displacement, population growth, and a long-term decline in global demand for the oil upon which many MENA economies rely, the cascading effects of climate change add to a daunting array of challenges. Long downplayed or ignored by elites and governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), climate change will affect the region in dire and far-reaching ways, amplifying long-standing problems of governance and sharpening socioeconomic inequalities while also creating new disruptions.
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