Middle East and North Africa Contributions to Climate Change

I. Contributions to Climate Change
There has been many cases in which the Middle East and North Africa has contributed to the Climate Change. Human forces cause most of these contributions to climate change. Saddam Hussein draining the wetlands of Southern Iraq has been destroying the traditional water cycles of the marshes. Yemen wastes 40% of their agricultural water supply on Qat, which will lead to Yemen’s capital, Somra, to be the first capital in the world to run out of water. The Middle East is most common known for its oil in which that it supports 40% of the World’s natural gas reserves (zawya.com). Much of the oil will burn off Carbon Dioxide into the air causing Global Warming, which increases the climate.

II. Impacts of Climate Change
A combination of Higher temperatures and reduced precipitation will increase the occurrence of droughts. It is further estimated that an additional 80 –100 million people will be exposed to water stress by 2025. This is likely to result in increased pressure on groundwater resources, which as mentioned above is already being used in most areas above aquifers’ sustainable levels. In addition, crop modeling results indicate that climate change will have a negative effect on crop yields in the Middle East and North Africa. By 2050 the region will face yield declines of up to 30 percent for rice, about 47 percent for maize and 20 percent for wheat (International Food Policy Research Institute). In urban areas in North Africa, a temperature increase of 1-3 degrees could expose 6–25 million people to coastal flooding. In addition, heat waves, an increased “heat island effect,” water scarcity, loss of arable land, decreasing water quality, and worsening air quality are likely to affect public health, and generally lead to challenging living conditions.

III.Proposed Solutions

Middle East and North Africa’s Proposed Solutions to Climate Change

According to Sir Charles Nicholson, BP’s Group Advisor on the Environment, “the world cannot ignore the impact of climate change and action should be taken now to address the issue. (ameinfo.com)”

Sir Charles cited the “increasing shift to using cleaner fuels such as natural gas, which in power generation produces 24 percent less carbon than oil and 41 percent less than coal” as the steps that BP is taking in the Middle East to reduce its burden on the environment.

In 1998 BP “set itself the target of reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2010. In (actuality), BP met the target by the end of 2001, nine years ahead of plan, and produced remarkable savings.”

BP introduced the method of Internal Emissions Trading System, in essence, “each of the company's 120 business units was given a greenhouse gas emissions allowance. If it exceeded this limit the unit had to either buy additional allowance from another unit or seek lower cost ways of staying within target.” BP hoped that this would provide incentive to its participants to reduce their carbon footprint while still expanding their business.
BP is exploring the method of CO­² capture and storage. The largest project of this nature is Algeria with Sonatrach; (BP) is developing one of the world's largest CO² storage projects to store the CO² that will be separated from large quantities of natural gas produced by the companies for the European market.

In Yemen, the World Bank is “supporting the identification and implementation of coping strategies for adaptation to climate change for highland farmers who rely on rain-fed agriculture. These strategies include the conservation and utilization of biodiversity important to agriculture (particularly the local land races and their wild relatives) and associated local traditional knowledge. The hope is to “emphasize the conservation of agro biodiversity and developing a range of coping mechanisms using predictive climate modeling. (web.worldbank.org)

Yemen’s Addiciton of Qat

Yemen’s capital, Somra, could be the first capital in the world to run out of water in the short amount of time of five to ten years. The water shortage will affect the population of Somra, which has quadrupled in the last 50 years. This is due to Yemen’s biggest addiction Qat.

Qat is a mild narcotic that this country, the poorest in the Middle East cannot stay away from. Most of the population requires having it daily for meetings, socializing and weddings. The problem is that Qat needs a lot of water to help it grow, especially when the temperature in that area is so high. Yemen uses 91% of its water on agriculture, and 40% of the water for agriculture is wasted on this narcotic. Most of the farms that used to grow different varieties of vegetation are now growing Qat because of it high demand.

This water problem was cause by human demands. Even though this article didn’t mention how this could effect our climate change, it should make sense that the water being waste is unsustainable. Also the government has thought about getting water from sea to help these farmers keep thriving. Farmers are even drilling illegal wells with the use of diesel and oil generators to help pump the water up, which is just increasing there Carbon Footprint to increase. This could effect the temperature because they are putting more Carbon Dioxide into our Atmosphere.

Even though this is a problem seems to be a hard one to fix, it can be done. Education would play a key role in helping Yemen’s population know the negative effects on Qat. The government also needs to set up new activities for its citizens so that they would not have to waste there time eating Qat and doing other things.

This is a good example of how we humans need to take more action to be more sustainable with what we have, especially water, which most living things needs to survive.

Links of articles below
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-02/world/yemen.water.crisis_1_qat-yemen-s-water-water-crisis?_s=PM:WORLD

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/11/28/jamjoom.yemen.water.crisis.cnn?iref=videosearch

Restoring Iraq's wetland marshes to the original Eden

This BBC story included both a video and article about the marshes in Iraq. These wetlands have been thought to be the original garden of Eden but recently have been destroyed and turned into dried out holes with little life continuing to live there.

 "Upstream dams have disrupted the traditional water cycle of the marshes. The spring floods that used to flush out accumulated salt deposits and replenish the marshes with fresh minerals no longer occur. As a result the marshes are becoming more saline, affecting the ecology of the area.
The dams have also reduced the total volume of water reaching the marshes in the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Combined with a prolonged regional drought the area is suffering from a second  drying."

This damage has been done by direct effect from human forces. Saddam Hussein drained these great wetlands of southern Iraq, destroying them, turning them to desert as punishment to the people living there. However, since his overthrow, a remarkable effort has begun to restore these Mesopotamian Marshes, among the most important wetland habitat in the world.

Although this disaster was caused on purpose it is an important representation of what human influence can do to the environment and what climate change could bring if we're not careful.


 Links to the article are listed below:
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12215046

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9364000/9364044.stm