Response of the Arab world to climate change challenges and the Paris agreement

Abstract

This paper reviews the national environmental agenda of Arab countries in the Middle East and Africa in an attempt to determine coherence of local efforts with the international environmental commitments these countries have made by signing and ratifying the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework and Convention on Climate Change. The paper succinctly summarizes the impacts of climate change on the countries of the region and the responses of individual countries to the eminent environmental threats. Using country specific data, the paper identifies the mitigation and adaptation measures that individual governments communicated in their initial Nationally Determined Contributions to combat climate change and support concomitantly the realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals pertinent to climate impacts. Furthermore, this paper evaluates the overall environmental commitment and performance of the Arab countries and compares them to the average global performance. The findings indicate that most of the Arab countries are heading toward severe water shortages due to deteriorating water supply and growing water demand. The paper concludes that the Arab countries, individually and collectively embrace the Paris Agreement and engage in necessary measures to combat and/or adapt to climate change. Furthermore, the paper presents supporting evidence to show that the Arab countries are at par with the rest of the world when dealing with climate change issues.

Appendix

See Table 4.

Table 4 Specific mitigation and adaptation measures, by Country