The UN’s COP27 conference came to an end, with talks culminating in a historic agreement to establish a “loss and damage” climate fund. Egyptian Foreign Minister and COP27 President Sameh Shoukry celebrated after the all-night talks, declaring that “we have risen to the occasion” and “we have heard the calls for anguish and desperation”.
Many details of the deal still need to be negotiated, but the fund is expected to mobilize support from the industrialized North to the climate-vulnerable global South for losses caused by natural disasters caused by the climate change🇧🇷
The fact that this year’s summit was held in Egypt, while COP28 will be hosted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reflects the particularly high vulnerability of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to change. the growing attention that its leaders are devoting to the subject.
While increased climate finance is essential to support vulnerable communities in the region, poor governance, corruption and conflict in MENA threaten to reduce the impact of these funds. For climate-vulnerable countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, these barriers could mean the difference between life and death for millions of people.
A region under fire
With the continent’s rivers drying up and an agricultural sector on the brink of collapse, 80 to 90 million people in the region are projected to experience some form of water stress by 2025. driven from their homes for the next 30 years.
Indeed, the MENA region faces a wide range of climate risks, from water scarcity and desertification to food insecurity and rising sea levels, threatening economies, livelihoods and even the long-term viability of certain areas. Ominously, the region is projected to be one of the first in the world to “effectively run out of water”, as water resources are used up faster than they can be replenished.
In Jordan, for example, rainfall is expected to drop by almost a third by the end of the century. In Iraq and Morocco, two-thirds of oases have disappeared due to increased evaporation and decreased rainfall, while Saudi Arabia and Sudan have already begun to experience severe sandstorms.
The unfolding environmental catastrophe is also a humanitarian one. According to recent reports, nearly one million people are currently facing catastrophic levels of hunger in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, ten times more than five years ago. The Horn of Africa is experiencing its fifth consecutive rainy season, extending the region’s longest drought in 40 years.
Corruption and conflict undermine climate action
In all this crisis, there are some signs of hope. Despite regional water scarcity, MENA has the lowest water tariffs in the world and the highest proportion of GDP spent on public water subsidies, while 80% of wastewater is not recycled, meaning opportunities for reform to meet demand by water are innumerable.
In Iraq, politicians in the Kurdish region are eager to outline the country’s climate reform ambitions and rally support for energy transition plans. “Encouraged by discussions at the COP26 Summit to accelerate action against a global threat,” wrote Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Twitter, adding that “the time to act is now”. However, climate efforts in Barzani-ruled Iraqi Kurdistan have consistently been hampered by entrenched corruption.
This reality is illustrated in the Korek telecommunications embezzlement case, in which hundreds of millions of dollars in investments by Kuwaiti logistics company Agility and French telecoms company Orange were seized without compensation. If strengthened anti-corruption efforts fail, foreign investors in climate initiatives should expect similar treatment.
At the same time, state capture in Lebanon led to the looting of the country’s resources by the political elite. This is exemplified by the “Ponzi scheme” scandal, whereby the Lebanese authorities used excessive debt accumulation to provide the “illusion of stability” while funds continued to flow to Lebanese groups abroad.
in a report In a scathing statement released earlier this year, World Bank experts were blunt. “It is important that the Lebanese people realize that the core characteristics of the [economía] they are gone never to return,” they wrote, “it is also important that you know this was deliberate.” The resulting economic depression has plunged millions of Lebanese into dire straits.
The ongoing civil war in Yemen is also devastating lives and paralyzing climate action. Protracted conflicts and several years of drought have forced millions of people from their homes, including farmers and pastoralists, while creating a food crisis that has only deepened instability across the country. Ongoing peace talks between regional and civil actors are therefore essential to lay the groundwork for Yemen’s future climate efforts.
Reform and peace are the only way forward
Governments in the MENA region cannot hope to attract the necessary levels of foreign climate investment without implementing good governance and corruption reforms and securing lasting peace. Only then will climate funds deliver impactful and personalized climate action projects.
In Lebanon, the World Bank informed leaders that the country will need to implement large-scale financial reform and stabilization programs to find a way out of its current socio-economic crisis, warning that “the cost of inaction is colossal, not just in the daily lives of citizens , but also in the future of the Lebanese people.
Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) will need to live up to recent commitments to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to bolster its anti-corruption frameworks with concrete actions in the coming years.
Finally, in Yemen, where the government has respected the terms of the current truce, unlike the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, the international community, particularly the EU and US, must complement vital humanitarian aid programs with diplomatic pressure on Iran and strict security guarantees. to Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemeni government.
Implementing these urgent reforms and conflict resolution measures would give the MENA region the long-term stability and investment needed to really start addressing its climate crisis before time runs out.
For Times of Sustainability. Article in English
