Missing Publics? The Politics and State of Climate Adaptation in the Arab World

Rapid economic and demographic growth has transformed the Arab world in less than half a century. Accompanying this change is a sobering host of environmental issues that have crippled a predominantly arid region. Water scarcity, desertification, and land degradation are among the most pronounced challenges, with water shortages hamstringing nineteen of the twenty-two countries comprising the region. Climate change is already putting additional stress on the economies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and, in a matter of a few decades, the lived impacts of accelerating global warming have become tangible. More than 40 percent of the Arab world’s citizens have already been exposed to climate disasters and drought. Notable examples include Syria, where unprecedented drought conditions have decimated the livelihoods of 20 percent of the rural population, and Somalia, where close to 900,000 people were displaced between November 2016 and August 2017 (UNDP 2018). This is a region that is warming twice as fast as the global average and that, as a matter of existential policy, must reconcile with the implications of climate change for a population expected to double by 2070 (Borghesi and Ticci 2019).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted as early as 1992 that Western Arabia and the Maghreb were two of the five world regions “most vulnerable to the effects of climate change” and facing the “greatest risk in terms of serious threats to sustaining the population.” Yet public awareness and policy responses across the region have been slower to emerge than elsewhere. A landmark 2009 Arab Forum for Environment and Development report argued that “virtually no work is being carried out to prepare Arab countries for climate change challenges. Specifically, no concerted data-gathering and research efforts could be traced regarding the impacts of climate change on health, infrastructure, biodiversity, tourism, water, and food production.” This paper takes stock of the state of climate adaptation planning and policy in the region, relying on an integrative literature review to examine how far knowledge production on the Arab world’s climate crisis has progressed since this appraisal.

On the frontlines of climate change, the Arab world is often depicted as soon to be “uninhabitable.” We are frequently warned of a “daunting crisis” and “unquantifiable danger” (e.g., Joffé 2016; Kharraza et al. 2012; Gubash 2018). Underlying these discourses of calamity is a series of somber projections. Current ‘business-as-usual’ climate scenarios would expose half of the region’s population to ultra-extreme, recurring heatwaves. In the second half of this century, temperatures of up to 56°C and higher may persist for several weeks at a time (Francis and Fonseca 2024). Under these same business-as-usual scenarios, average temperature increases in the MENA region are expected to reach up to 4°C (Gaub and Lienard 2021). But it is not just a hotter future – and indeed, present – that afflicts the region. Exposure to extreme and chronic water stress, high degrees of urbanization and rapid population growth, and unprecedented flash floods make for a complex and interconnected climate vulnerability matrix. Ongoing desertification threatens nearly a fifth of the region’s total land area (Abahussain et al. 2002; AHDR 2009). The region has also observed noticeable declines in biodiversity, and shifting climate extremes are contributing to vector-borne illnesses that burden public health systems.