The Middle East is running out of water

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Sunday marks World Environment Day 2022, an annual celebration of the environment, founded in 1973 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and honored by 150 countries worldwide. This year, World Environment Day commemorates 50 years since the first-ever international meeting on the environment – the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment.

Yet research by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace suggests that the Middle East has little to celebrate, with climate change set to amplify problems of governance, sharpen socioeconomic inequalities and create new disruptions.

The region has been severely affected by climate change over the past few decades, with temperatures rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius since the 1950s, according to Gidon Bromberg, the Israel director of EcoPeace Middle East, an organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists with the aim of promoting environmental cooperation, as a gateway to more general cooperation.

A report by the Carnegie Endowment in February 2022 showed that water scarcity is now threatening to trigger violent conflict in the Middle East and North Africa, as MENA is projected to be the first region in the world to “effectively run out of water.”

Rainfall in Jordan is expected to drop by 30% before the end of the century, and some models predict a reduction in MENA’s internal renewable water of around 4% by 2050.

According to the Carnegie Endowment, this will affect between 80 million and 90 million of the region’s inhabitants, who are currently on track to experience water insecurity by 2025.

Bromberg says that water insecurity is currently the most pressing concern in the Middle East, requiring urgent redressal measures at the regional level.

Rainfall in Jordan is expected to drop by 30% before the end of the century, and some models predict a reduction in MENA’s internal renewable water of around 4% by 2050.

According to the Carnegie Endowment, this will affect between 80 million and 90 million of the region’s inhabitants, who are currently on track to experience water insecurity by 2025.

Bromberg says that water insecurity is currently the most pressing concern in the Middle East, requiring urgent redressal measures at the regional level.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-708493