Summer 2024 was the hottest on record, as the world deals with the escalating effects of global climate change. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has predicted that 2024 will be the warmest year since records began.
Temperatures this Summer were 1.51°C above the pre-industrial level, indicating the cumulative effects of the climate crisis. C3S noted a 0.23% global temperature increase, compared to 2023.
Climate change is causing massive environmental degradation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, because of the increasing problem of water scarcity. UNICEF has stated that the MENA region “is among the world’s most vulnerable regions when it comes to climate change.”
It has faced water challenges for thousands of years, “but the scale of water scarcity is now unprecedented, as is the impact on children, the poor, the marginalised and the most vulnerable communities,” UNICEF continued.
The MENA region is the most water-scarce in the world, containing 11 of the 17 “most water-stressed countries”. According to UNICEF, “Nearly nine out of ten children in the region live in areas of high or extremely high-water stress and suffer subsequent effects on health and nutrition and their future mental and physical development.”
A recent report from the World Bank states that the poorest people in the MENA region will be the worst affected by climate change. The report found that “poor and socioeconomically disadvantaged” populations are most at risk when governments fail to deal with climate change.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US-based thinktank, has released a recent study of water scarcity in a number of MENA countries. The foundation’s research points out that water scarcity is often exacerbated by states monopolising water sources and using them as political leverage points. The study points to Turkey’s domination of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, through large dams and hydroelectric power installations. This hegemony over the region’s water has severely limited Iraq’s water supply. Similarly, the Israeli state has limited Jordan’s supply of water through its projects dominating the Dead Sea and Lake Tiberias.
