Countries of the Arabian Peninsula, which includes the Sultanate of Oman on its southeastern edge, will unlikely be spared any of the dire weather-related predictions made by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its report published earlier this week.
In essence, it warns that global median temperatures are projected to rise by an average of 1.5 degrees Centigrade within two decades, accelerating disruptions in weather patterns that sustain human, animal and plant life on the earth.
The resulting weather extremes will be associated with, among other perils, alternating periods of severe flooding, drought, hurricanes and supercyclones, melting ice-caps, rising sea levels and coastal flooding, with disastrous consequences for agriculture, farming, food security, safety from disease and pandemics, and a host of other hazards.
In its mammoth report, based on gleanings from an estimated 14,000 scientific papers, the IPCC also looks at potential impacts for the Arabian Peninsula once the atmosphere warms by 1.5 degrees C over pre-industrial levels – a level likely to be reached by around 2040. There is worse in store at 2 degrees C of global warming, with critical tolerance threshold levels for human health and agriculture expected to be breached.
The IPCC report cites “significant increases in the intensity and frequency of hot extremes and significant decreases in the intensity and frequency of cold extremes” in the Arabian Peninsula. Further, there is “strong evidence of changes from observations that are in the direction of model projected changes for the future”, the report warns. The magnitude of projected changes increases with global warming, it further notes.
The landmark report cites “medium” confidence that human activity contributed to the observed increase in the intensity and frequency of hot extremes and decrease in the intensity and frequency of cold extremes in the region.
Significantly, Oman-based environmental experts have long warned that climate change resulting from global warming can have potentially severe consequences for the Sultanate. In particular, rising seawater levels can potentially imperil cities and towns in North and South Al Sharqiya, as well as North and South Batinah governorates, among other areas, with grave implications for tourism, real estate, infrastructure and industry.
Climate change will also cause upheavals for Oman’s agriculture and fisheries sectors. Prolonged periods of drought are likely to spur the ingress of saline water into groundwater, particularly near the coast, driving up the demand for fresh water for agriculture and irrigation. In the Arabian Sea, changes in the chemical characteristics of the water are beginning the impact the reproductive cycles of certain fish species, notably tuna and sardine.
But according to a key energy expert, use of fossil fuel – one of the principal contributors of greenhouse gases responsible for climate change – has been on the increase in response to extreme weather brought about by global warming.
Chris Midgley, Global Director of Analytics, S&P Global Platts, warned that high temperatures across the world have resulted in unprecedented cooling demand, driving greater thermal generation. Droughts are impacting crops and hydroelectricity stocks while in other regions floods impact production.
Heat waves were exposing the vulnerability of low-carbon energy systems to climate change, Midgely said. Renewables have been hit by low water levels and low wind, with load factors in the UK dropping to just 10 per cent recently, requiring thermal power generation to fill the gap.
Meanwhile some companies and countries are attempting to do their bit by buying nature-based carbon credits, even as forests themselves “right now are literally going up in flames, adding more carbon to the atmosphere than all the new electric vehicles are saving,” Midgely said.
“While the energy transition may be a marathon and not a sprint, there is no doubt we need to set the bar higher for technologies like CCS, Hydrogen and Nuclear if we really want to go for gold and win the battle against temperature rise,” he added.
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