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When the temperature reaches 50 degrees Celsius and Ali Habib can no longer stand the heat outside, he stands up from his chair below a parasol on a street corner and heads to his car.
He turns on the air conditioning and cools down for a while.
Habib, who spends 12 hours a day selling sunflower seeds to drivers in Kuwait, knows all too well what it feels like to spend a summer in extreme heat.
Located on the Persian Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the country can feel like an oven during summer, with the hot air that blows across the country making breathing hard and skin and hair hot in minutes.

No one goes outside during the day unless they have to.
This may be a sign of things to come as the climate changes and parts of the world become too hot to live in other than indoors.
Rising temperatures over the next 50 to 75 years could make large parts of Kuwait unsuitable for human habitation, according to the Kuwait Times.
In summer, many of the wealthiest people in Kuwait only leave their air-conditioned homes to drive to air-conditioned shopping centres, shops or restaurants in air-conditioned cars.
“It’s almost as if the outdoors doesn’t exist,” Kuwait-based architect Sharifa Alshalfan told The Guardian newspaper.
Stepping out from 18 to 40 degrees can lead to circulatory collapse in people who are already ill
Doctor Andrea Nakoinz on the contrast between indoors and outdoors
In 2016 Mitribah, a weather station in Kuwait, recorded a temperature of 53.9 degrees Celsius (129 degrees Fahrenheit) – the third-highest temperature in the world on record, as verified by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Only Death Valley in California (56.7 degrees Celsius in 1913) and Kebili in Tunisia (55 degrees Celsius in 1931) have recorded higher temperatures.
In Kuwait, temperatures this year exceeded the 50-degree Celsius mark in May, the earliest point in the year in decades.
Some malls there have dedicated lanes for walking and jogging on the upper floors.
“I come every day around half past six or seven,” says a 50-year-old man wearing green trainers and a cap who has come to the Avenues, a kind of air-conditioned village for shopping and eating.

Cold air streams in from wall pipes, you shiver and your nose gets blocked. Birds fly under the glass roof.
“It feels like you’re walking outside,” one New Zealander says enthusiastically.
Outside, the sun shines unrelentingly and plants and animals have long since wilted in the heat.
Stray cats are being brought into vets’ surgeries in summer after suffering from heat exhaustion, a local journalist reports. Birds lie dead on the roofs of houses unable to find shade or water.
Dead fish repeatedly wash up on the shore, struggling to get sufficient oxygen in the sweltering Kuwait Bay.
On Kuwait’s waterfront promenade, pigeons jostle in the shade of palm trees. Trees there are dying; even heat-resistant palm trees wither by the roadside, their light brown leaves hanging limply.
With the very high humidity level found on the coast of Kuwait, people’s bodies are no longer able to cool down by sweating, Dr Andrea Nakoinz of the German Alliance on Climate Change and Health says.

Sweat no longer evaporates on the skin, which would otherwise provide a cooling effect. “Then being in heat of over 40 degrees for several hours can be fatal,” she says.
High-energy air-conditioned buildings are not the solution. The air from the air conditioning systems dries out the airways and makes them more susceptible to germs, says Nakoinz.
And, she adds, “If I’m always sitting in air-conditioned rooms, I can’t adapt to the heat. Stepping out from 18 to 40 degrees can lead to circulatory collapse in people who are already ill.”
Kuwait’s dilemma lies in its vast oil reserves, discovered in 1938, which are among the largest in the world. With them has come prosperity, skyscrapers and 12-lane motorways.
The country aims to have 15 per cent renewable energies by 2030 but for electricity generation, this was recently found to be just 0.2 per cent, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Few countries consume as much electricity as Kuwait, and its consumption is rising.
“Oil and gas keep us moving” and “fuel our world”, says a museum near the country’s largest oilfield, Burgan.
Here, oil is seen as representing progress, as a source of national pride rather than the harmful energy source environmental activists in other parts of the world view it as.
In the museum shop in Kuwait, the mascot is a laughing oil drum with a helmet. It sells blue oil worker overalls in children’s sizes.
What am I supposed to do? I have to earn my living
Hamid Mohammed Issa, a fisherman working in the Kuwaiti heat
Kuwait has the cheapest petrol of any country on the Persian Gulf, according to the owner of one tourism company. The state subsidises petrol so that one litre (0.26 gallons) costs around US$0.34 – less than a litre of Coca-Cola.
When he parks and gets out of his sports utility vehicle for about 15 minutes, the tourism company owner leaves the engine running to keep it nice and cool. His fuel consumption is between 14 and 20 litres per 100 kilometres (60 miles).
Some of the few pedestrians that can be seen at crossings carry scarves and umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun and exhaust fumes.
Most of the beaches are deserted, with only a few people toughing out the searing midday heat or dipping their feet in the water.
As in other regions of the world, the impacts of climate change hit the poorest first.

On building sites in Khaitan, south of Kuwait City, you can meet men from India or Sri Lanka mixing cement, laying water pipes and cladding ceilings. Outdoor work is forbidden between 11am and 4pm in summer.
The migrant workers, who make up around two-thirds of Kuwait’s population, are particularly at risk of heat-related health problems and “bear the brunt”, says the World Health Organization.
Egyptians bring their catch ashore at the fish market even as the temperature hits 48 degrees Celsius.
“What am I supposed to do?” says Hamid Mohammed Issa, who has been working in Kuwait for 42 years. Sweat runs down his forehead like water. “I have to earn my living.”


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People in Kuwait escape the heat by walking through the popular Avenues mall. Photo: Getty Images

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People take shelter from the sun in Kuwait City during summer. Photo: AFP

People in Kuwait escape the heat by walking through the popular Avenues mall. The Gulf nation is considered one of the hottest places on Earth, with temperatures reaching over 50 Celsius. Photo: Getty Images

Beachgoers cool down in the sea in Kuwait City. Photo: AFP

People walk through a mist dispenser at al-Mubarakiya market in Kuwait City. Photo: AFP

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Air-conditioned malls and cars offer an escape from dangerous outdoor temperatures in Kuwait. Will climate change turn more places like it?


Kuwait

Kuwait a climate change harbinger, so hot birds and fish die and life is lived indoors

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Air-conditioned malls and cars offer an escape from dangerous outdoor temperatures in Kuwait. Will climate change turn more places like it?

Air-conditioned malls and cars offer an escape from dangerous outdoor temperatures in Kuwait. Will climate change turn more places like it?