Gulf countries at risk of unlivable heat as the planet warms

Scorching summers are a staple of Gulf cities such Dubai, but experts are warning that climate change could soon make parts of the region unlivable for humans.

Daily temperatures in Dubai regularly surpass 40 degrees Celsius for several months of the year and are exacerbated by high humidity.

Earlier this month, a report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that climate is changing much faster than previously feared and unequivocally because of human activity.

The UAE is also one of the world’s most arid countries. In recent years, the gulf country has been relying on aircraft for cloud seeding to artificially produce rain.

“In general, the level of heat stress will increase significantly,” said Elfatih Eltahir, a professor of hydrology and climate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Experts warn that with higher temperatures and humidity towards the turn of the century, some parts of the Gulf will experience “heat stress conditions that will be incompatible with human survival”, he warned.

The combination of heat and humidity has the potential to be deadly if the human body is unable to cool off through sweating. Scientists calculated that a healthy human adult in the shade with unlimited drinking water will die if temperatures exceed 35C for six hours.

Scientists assumed that this theoretical threshold would never be crossed until US researchers reported last year on two locations, one in the UAE and another in Pakistan, where the 35C barrier was breached more than once.

Gulf states in recent years have taken up greener rhetoric as they try to improve their carbon footprint, despite calls to reduce carbon emissions posing economic challenges for the oil and gas-rich countries.

The UAE aims to increase it reliance on clean energy to 50% by 2050 and reduce its carbon footprint for power generation by 70%, while Abu Dhabi says it’s building the world’s largest single-site solar plant.