[[link removed]]

DEAD LAST (WITH AN EMPHASIS ON DEAD!)  
[[link removed]]


 

Juan Cole
April 16, 2024
Tom Dispatch
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Despite the fact that the Middle East has experienced hellish heat
waves and epic floods, Middle Eastern regimes gets gailing grades on
climate action _

,

 

Last September witnessed what used to be a truly rare weather
phenomenon: a Mediterranean hurricane, or “medicane.” Once upon a
time, the Mediterranean Sea simply didn’t get hot enough to produce
hurricanes more than every few hundred (yes, few hundred!) years. In
this case, however, Storm Daniel assaulted Libya with a biblical-style
deluge for four straight days. It was enough to overwhelm the al-Bilad
and Abu Mansour dams near the city of Derna, built in the 1970s to old
cool-earth specifications. The resulting flood destroyed
[[link removed]] nearly
1,000 buildings, washing thousands of people out to sea, and displaced
tens of thousands more.

Saliha Abu Bakr, an attorney, told a harrowing tale of how the waters
kept rising in her apartment building before almost reaching the roof
and quite literally washing many of its residents away. She clung to a
piece of wooden furniture for three hours in the water. “I can
swim,” she told a reporter
[[link removed]] afterward,
“but when I tried to save my family, I couldn’t do a thing.”
Human-caused climate change, provoked by the way we spew 37 billion
[[link removed]] metric
tons of dangerous carbon dioxide gas into our atmosphere every year,
made the Libyan disaster 50 times
[[link removed]] more
likely than it once might have been. And worse yet, for the Middle
East, as well as the rest of the world, that nightmare is undoubtedly
only the beginning of serial disasters to come (and come and come and
come) that will undoubtedly render millions of people homeless or
worse.

FAILING GRADES

In the race to keep this planet from heating up more than 2.7°
Fahrenheit (1.5° Centigrade) above the preindustrial average, the
whole world is already getting abominable grades. Beyond that
benchmark, scientists fear, the planet’s whole climate system could
fall into chaos, severely challenging civilization itself.
The Climate Change Performance Index
[[link removed]] (CCPI),
which monitors the implementation of the Paris climate accords,
presented its alarming conclusions in a late March report. The CCPI
crew was so disheartened by its findings — no country is even close
to meeting the goals set in that treaty – that it left the top three
slots in its ranking system completely empty.

For the most part, the countries of the Middle East made a distinctly
poor showing when it came to the greenhouse gas emissions from the
burning of fossil fuels that are already heating the planet so
radically. Admittedly, Morocco, with longstanding and ambitious green
energy goals, came in ninth, and Egypt
[[link removed]],
which depends heavily on hydroelectric power and has some solar
projects, ranked a modest 22nd. However, some Middle Eastern countries
like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hit rock bottom in the
CCPI’s chart. That matters since you undoubtedly won’t be
surprised to learn that the region produces
[[link removed]] perhaps
27% of the world’s petroleum annually and includes five of the 10
largest oil producers on the planet.

Ironically enough, the Middle East is at special risk from climate
change. Scientists have found
[[link removed]] that
it’s experiencing twice the rate of heating as the global average
and, in the near future, they warn that it will suffer, as a
recent study
[[link removed]] from
the Carnegie Institute for International Peace put it, from “soaring
heat waves, declining precipitation, extended droughts, more intense
sandstorms and floods, and rising sea levels.” And yet some of the
countries facing the biggest threat from the climate crisis seem all
too intent on making it far worse.

LITTLE SPARTA

The CCPI index, issued by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute, and
the Climate Action Network (CAN), ranks
[[link removed]] countries
in their efforts to meet the goals set by the Paris Agreement
according to four criteria: their emissions of greenhouse gases, their
implementation of renewable energy, their consumption of fossil-fuel
energy, and their government’s climate policies. The authors listed
the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 65th place, calling it “one of the
lowest-performing countries.” The report then slammed the government
of President Mohammed Bin Zayed, saying: “The UAE‘s per capita
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are among the highest in the world, as
is its per capita wealth, while its national climate targets are
inadequate. The UAE continues to develop and finance new oil and gas
fields domestically and abroad.” On the southeast coast of the
Arabian Peninsula, the UAE has a population of only about a million
citizens (and about eight million guest workers). It is nonetheless a
geopolitical energy and greenhouse gas giant of the first order.

[[link removed]]

Buy the Book
[[link removed]]

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC, headquartered in that
country’s capital and helmed by businessman Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber
(who is also the country’s minister of industry and advanced
technology), has some of the more ambitious
[[link removed]] plans
for expanding petroleum production in the world. ADNOC is, in fact,
seeking to increase its oil production from four million to five
million barrels a day by 2027, while further developing its crucial
al-Nouf oil field, next to which the UAE is building an artificial
island to help with its expected future expansion. To be fair, the UAE
is behaving little differently from the United States, which ranked
only a few spots better at 57. Last October, in fact, American oil
production
[[link removed]],
which continues to be heavily government-subsidized (as does that
industry in Europe), actually hit an all-time high.

The UAE is a major proponent of the dubious technique of carbon
capture and storage, which has not yet been found to reduce carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions significantly or to do so safely and
affordably. The magazine _Oil Change International_
[[link removed]] points
out that the country’s carbon capture efforts at the Emirates Steel
Plant probably sequester no more than 17% of the CO2 produced there
and that the stored carbon dioxide is then injected into older,
non-producing oil fields to help retrieve the last drops of petroleum
they hold.

The UAE, which the Pentagon adoringly refers to as “little Sparta”
for its aggressive military interventions in places like Yemen and
Sudan, brazenly flouts the international scientific consensus on
climate action. As ADNOC’s al-Jaber had the cheek to claim
[[link removed]] last
fall: “There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that
says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve
1.5C.”

Such outrageous denialism scales almost Trumpian heights in the faux
grandeur of its mendacity. At the time, al-Jaber was also, ironically
enough, the chairman of the yearly U.N. Conference of Parties (COP)
climate summit. Last November 21st, he boldly posed
[[link removed]] this
challenge: “Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of
fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development,
unless you want to take the world back into caves.” (In the world
he’s helping to create, of course, even the caves would sooner or
later prove too hot to handle.) This year the International Energy
Agency decisively answered
[[link removed]] his epic
piece of trolling by reporting that the wealthier nations,
particularly the European ones, actually grew their gross national
products in 2023 even as they cut CO2 emissions by a stunning 4.5%. In
other words, moving away from fossil fuels can make humanity more
prosperous and safer from planetary catastrophe rather than turning us
into so many beggars.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!”

What could be worse than the UAE’s unabashedly pro-fossil fuel
energy policy? Well, Iran, heavily wedded to oil and gas, is, at 66,
ranked one place lower than that country. Ironically, however,
extensive American sanctions on Iran’s petroleum exports may, at
long last, be turning
[[link removed]] that
country’s ruling ayatollahs toward creating substantial wind and
solar power projects.

But I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that dead last —
with an emphasis on “dead” — comes that favorite of Donald
(“drill, drill, drill
[[link removed]]“)
Trump, Saudi Arabia, which, at 67, “scores very low in all four CCPI
index categories: Energy Use, Climate Policy, Renewable Energy, and
GHG Emissions.” Other observers have noted
[[link removed]] that, since
1990, the kingdom’s carbon dioxide emissions have increased by a
compound yearly rate of roughly 4% and, in 2019, that relatively small
country was the world’s 10th largest emitter of CO2.

Worse yet, though you wouldn’t know it from the way the leaders of
both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are acting, the Arabian
Peninsula (already both arid and torrid) is anything but immune to the
potential disasters produced by climate change. The year 2023 was, in
fact, the third hottest on record
[[link removed]] in Saudi
Arabia. (2021 took the all-time hottest mark so far.) The weather is
already unbearable there in the summer. On July 18, 2023, the
temperature in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, al-Ahsa, reached
[[link removed]] an
almost inconceivable 122.9° F (50.5° C). If, in the future, such
temperatures were to be accompanied by a humidity of 50%, some
researchers are suggesting that they could prove fatal to humans.
According to Professor Lewis Halsey of the University of Roehampton in
England and his colleagues, that kind of heat can actually raise
[[link removed]] the
temperature of an individual by 1.8° F. In other words, it would be
as if they were running a fever and, worse yet, “people’s
metabolic rates also rose by 56%, and their heart rates went up by
64%.”

While the Arabian Peninsula is relatively dry, cities on the Red Sea
and the Gulf of Aden can at times be humid and muggy, which means that
significant increases in temperature could sooner or later render them
uninhabitable. Such rising heat even threatens one of Islam’s
“five pillars.” This past year the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca,
known as the Hajj, took place in June, when temperatures sometimes
reached 118° F (48° C) in western Saudi Arabia. More than 2,000
pilgrims fell victim to heat stress
[[link removed]],
a problem guaranteed to worsen radically as the planet heats further.

Despite the threat that climate change poses to the welfare of that
country’s inhabitants, the government of King Salman and Crown
Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is doing less than nothing to address the
growing problems. As the CCPI’s authors put it, “Saudi Arabia’s
per capita greenhouse gas emissions are rising steadily. Its share of
renewable energy in total primary energy supply (TPES) is close to
zero.” Meanwhile, at the 2022 U.N. climate summit conference held in
Egypt, “Saudi Arabia played a notably unconstructive role in the
negotiations. Its delegation included many fossil fuel lobbyists. It
also tried to water down the language used in the COP’s umbrella
decision.”

At the next meeting in Dubai last fall, COP28, the final
document called only for
[[link removed]] “transitioning
away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and
equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as
to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.” Avoided
was the far more relevant phrase “phase down” or “phase out”
when it came to fossil fuels and even the far milder “transitioning
away” was only included over the strenuous objections of Riyadh,
whose energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, said
[[link removed]] “absolutely
not” to any such language. He added, “And I assure you not a
single person — I’m talking about governments — believes in
that.” His assertion was, of course, nonsense. In fact, some
leaders, like those of Pacific Island
[[link removed]] nations,
consider an immediate abolition of fossil fuels essential to the very
survival of their countries.

ABANDONING THE LOGIC OF SMALL STEPS

Although Saudi Arabia’s leaders sometimes engage in greenwashing
[[link removed]],
including making periodic announcements
[[link removed]] about
future plans to develop green energy, they have done virtually nothing
in that regard, despite the Kingdom’s enormous potential for solar
and wind power. Ironically, the biggest Saudi green energy achievement
has been abroad, thanks to the ACWA Power
[[link removed]] firm, a public-private joint venture
in the Kingdom. The Moroccan government, the only one in the Middle
East to make significant strides in combatting climate change, brought
in ACWA as part of a consortium
[[link removed]] to
build its epochal Noor concentrated solar energy complex near the
ancient city of Ouarzazate at the edge of the Sahara desert. It has
set a goal of getting 52% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.
Though critics pointed out that it missed its goal of 42% by 2020,
government boosters responded
[[link removed]] that,
by the end of 2022, 37% of Morocco’s electricity already came from
renewables and, just in the past year, it jumped to 40%, with a total
renewables production of 4.6 gigawatts of energy.

Moreover, Morocco has a plethora
[[link removed]] of
green energy projects in the pipeline, including 20 more hydroelectric
installations, 19 wind farms, and 16 solar farms. The solar plants
alone are expected to generate 13.5 gigawatts within a few years,
tripling the country’s current total green energy output. Two huge
wind farms, one retooled with a new generation of large turbines, have
already come online
[[link removed]] in
the first quarter of this year. The country’s expansion of green
electricity production since it launched its visionary plans in 2009
has not only helped it make major strides toward decarbonization but
contributed to the electrification
[[link removed]] of
its countryside, where access to power is now universal. Just in the
past two and a half decades, the government has provided 2.1 million
households with electricity access. Morocco has few hydrocarbons of
its own and local green energy helps the state avoid an enormous drain
on its budget.

In contrast to the pernicious nonsense often spewed by Saudi and
Emirati officials, the Moroccan king, Mohammed VI, is in no doubt
about the severe challenges his poverty-ridden country faces. He told
[[link removed]] the
U.N. COP28 climate conference in early December, “Just as climate
change is inexorably increasing, the COPs must, from here on, emerge
from the logic of ‘small steps,’ which has characterized them for
too long.”

Large steps toward a Middle East (and a world) of low-carbon energy
would, of course, be a big improvement. Unfortunately, on a planet
they are helping to overheat in a remarkable fashion, the United Arab
Emirates, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have largely taken steps — huge
ones, in fact — toward ever more carbon dioxide emissions. Worse
yet, they’re located in a part of the world where such retrograde
policies are tantamount to playing Russian roulette with a fully
loaded gun.

Copyright Juan Cole 2024

Featured image: Refinery
[[link removed]] by Rongy
Benjamin [[link removed]] is licensed under CC
BY-NC 2.0 [[link removed]] / Flickr

_Follow TomDispatch on Twitter
[[link removed]] and join us on Facebook
[[link removed]]. Check out the newest Dispatch
Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel, Songlands
[[link removed]] (the
final one in his Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s
novel Every Body Has a Story
[[link removed]], and
Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War
[[link removed]],
as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century:
The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power
[[link removed]], John
Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World
War II
[[link removed]], and
Ann Jones’s They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from
America’s Wars: The Untold Story
[[link removed]]._

_Juan Cole, a TomDispatch regular
[[link removed]],
is the Richard P. Mitchell collegiate professor of history at the
University of Michigan. He is the author of The Rubáiyát of Omar
Khayyam: A New Translation From the Persian
[[link removed]] and Muhammad:
Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires
[[link removed]].
His latest book is Peace Movements in Islam
[[link removed]].
His award-winning blog is Informed Comment
[[link removed]]. He is also a non-resident Fellow of the
Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha and of Democracy
for the Arab World Now (DAWN)._

* Climate Change
[[link removed]]
* Global warming
[[link removed]]
* Saudi Arabia
[[link removed]]
* UAE
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]