Middle East could see millions of people displaced by climate change

World Bank estimates that by 2050, if nothing is done to prevent it, there will be 216 million people internally displaced by climate change, including 19.3 million in North Africa

Low rainfall, frequent heatwaves and worsening drought make the Middle East the most water-stressed region in the world

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Water buffaloes walk in dried-up marshes near al-Qurnah natural gas field in the north of Iraq’s southern Basra province. Little rainfall, aggressive heatwaves and worsening drought make the Middle East the most water-stressed region in the world, with climate change threatening to displace millions of people. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:46pm, 30 Oct 2022

Little rainfall, aggressive heatwaves and worsening drought make the Middle East the most water-stressed region in the world, with climate change threatening to displace millions of people.

Hussein Abu Saddam, head of the farmers’ syndicate in Egypt that is hosting the COP27 global climate summit in November, told AFP he is already witness to a climate-induced exodus from the countryside.

Agriculture in Egypt – “one of the most arid countries in the world” – has grown even less profitable because of new climate-linked hazards such as “the appearance of new parasites”, he said.

“Young people from rural areas are migrating abroad or to big cities to work in industry.”

According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), “roughly 90 per cent of refugees come from countries that are the most vulnerable and least ready to adapt to the impacts of climate change”.

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