The Climate Emergency is upon us. Extreme weather events, droughts, wildfires and rising sea levels which were predicted to occur between 20-230 and 2050 are already running rampant globally. No region is most prone to global warming than the Middle East (MENA). What are the political implications of the Climate Emergency for MENA and what will be the affect on regions beyond?
The most significant impact of the Climate Emergency on the MENA region is to dramatically increase climate migration. The core problem is increasing temperatures and drought which are producing a regional water crisis. In Iraq, home of the storied Fertile Crescent, the country's water shortage is reaching a crisis level. Salt water from the Mediterranean is encroaching on the Nile's 2 tributaries rendering adjacent farm land uncultivable. Jordan's aquifer is being depleted while Tunisia's agricultural sector is facing collapse due to lack of irrigation. Jordan gets $250m funding to tackle water crisis
In the Gulf region, Iran has been forced to move residents 2 of its southwest provinces becase water resources have dried up. It is rated as the country with fourth most sever water crisis.
Middle East is home to 1/2 billion with roughly 40% under the age of 18. The combination of a "youth bulge," authoritarian rule, widespread corruption and few options for employment without "wasta" (elite connections), MENA youth are highly discontented. Add the deleterious impact of rapid climate change, ad we see a toxic brew.
Many regimes in the Middle East used their purported revolutionary bona fides to establish political legitimacy. While Nasser's Arab socialism, or the Ba'th Party's vow in Syrian and Iraq to reestablish the glory of the ancient Arab-Islamic empires, or the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria.
The so-called Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the few regimes which still keeps up the illusion of revolutionary change. However, its "revolutionary" activity is to have crated a network of militias in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen and to have propped up the sclerotic regime of Bashar al-Asad in Syria. Domestically, its "revolutionary" activity involves arresting, imprisoning ans sexually abusing women who fail to adhere to the regime's hijab law and to executing males who dare to criticize the regime's repression.
Instead, most regimes in the Middle East, whether republican or monarchical, no longer pretend to be pursuing major political-structural change. Ideology is dead. Instead, a corrupt crony capitalism defines the nature of rule in the MENA region. Even in Turkey, which once posed a "neo-Ottoman" Islamism, ideology has given way to force and imprisonment. Antonio Gramsci once defined hegemony as "an iron fist clothed in velvet." In the MENA region today, no regime enjoys hegemonic control.
In his classic study, Exit, Voice and Loyalty, Albert O. Hirschman argued that firms or political systems in decline offered its members 3 options, leave the troubled venue, protests against the crisis, or keeping a stiff upper lip and accepting the status quo. For youth in the MENA region, protest has been violently suppressed, whether the Arab Spring uprisings or the Green Revolution in Iran. For youth who desire a better future, exit is the only possible response
Even the 2005 Cedars Revolution in Lebanon, which forced the Syrian Army o leave Lebanon, and the 2022 Hirak protests in Algeria, which ousted President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika, failed to bring about meaningful political change. Tunisia, the one purported success story of the Arab Spring uprisings, reverted to authoritarians under the rule of President Ka'is Said in 2021. Under these circumstances - political repression and unemployment or underemployment, the climate crisis will only exacerbate the problems facing youth in the MENA region.
There are 3 routes to Europe for migrants leaving the MENA region. Two are no longer viable. It is difficult to cross Turkey and Greece and then travel to the European Union through the the Balkans. Crossing the Mediterranean from Morocco to Spain is also no longer an option given border controls in place in both countries. Thus, the main route is to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, either to the Island of Lambadusa to to Sicily.
Officials have struggled to estimate the number of migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea. Many migrants have travelled in non-seaworthy vessels and died as a result. We do know that 157,631 migrants arrived in Italy in 2023. The vast majority of migrants who leave North Africa do so from the beaches of Tunisia and to a lesser extent, from Libya
