UAE needs to identify risk areas to take on climate change

Dubai: The UAE needs a national and regional strategy for climate change to deal with the economic, agricultural and health consequences of increasing temperatures and dwindling fresh water supply, an environmental expert has said.

The world is undergoing an unprecedented period of climate change, affecting weather patterns, rainfall and sea levels, blamed on the increase in greenhouses gases in the atmosphere because of human consumption.

Prof Geoffrey Boulton, vice-principal and head of the Global Change Group at University of Edinburgh, told Gulf News global temperatures are likely to increase to two or five degrees Celsius in the next 50 to 100 years. "Now that may not sound like much, but the last time the temperature changed an average of five degrees was since the last Ice Age was and that has taken 10,000 years," he said.

Prof Boulton said with rising temperatures, the sea levels would rise by six inches in the next 50 to 100 years, causing massive loss of land mass.

With the rising temperatures and the problems they spawn, he said the UAE needed to assemble a team of specialists to formulate an action plan for climate change.

The team, which should include engineers, climate scientists and marine biologists, will have to consider the direct and indirect effects of climate change.

"Get an idea of where the risks are. For example, rising sea levels mean less land. Concrete can crumble if land becomes more salinated," he said.

Other areas that need to be tackled include the economic, agricultural and health aspects of climate change. Prof Boulton said many of the problems would be due to a decreasing rainfall.

"The area will get drier and availability of fresh water for human consumption and agriculture will decrease," he said.

He said solving the fresh water shortage would not be easy either, as the solution may worsen the problem. To get water for human consumption and agricultural use, authorities will be forced to desalinate seawater even more, requiring more energy consumption and burning of fossil fuels.

The water shortage will not only decrease food supply, it will also cause health problems, causing more gastro-intestinal diseases among the population as the salinity of the ground increases. At the same time, temperatures will soar to dangerous levels.

"The UAE temperatures will increase, particularly summer temperatures, and cause more heat waves. It will push temperatures over the 50-degree mark, which is not good. There will be more heat strokes."

Prof Boulton said after dealing with it on the national level, the UAE will need to collaborate with other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and internationally limit climate change. "If UAE decides to reduce carbon emission by a 100 per cent tomorrow, it's not going to have an effect, if other countries continue to do so."

The UAE emits 80 tonnes of carbon per person annually, compared to the United States, which emits 14 tonnes per person.