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Expert warns of water crisis in Middle East
DUBAI - The Special Adviser to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Svein Tveitdal, yesterday cautioned that the Middle East could experience extreme heat and scarcity of water due to global warming.
- PUBLISHED: Thu 6 Dec 2007, 9:06 AM UPDATED: Sun 5 Apr 2015, 2:08 AM
He was speaking on “Mother Earth-What is Happening with the Global Climate?” to students of the American University in Dubai (AUD) and The Winchester School at the AUD campus.
He is in Dubai for an environment seminar to suggest ways to make power boating more eco-friendly.
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Tveitdal, a former UN director, who is also responsible for the Secretariat of the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) that will receive the Nobel Peace Prize this month, said the world was facing extreme weather changes because of the alarming increase in emissions of greenhouse gases.
Speaking to Khaleej Times, he said, “The Middle East could see more hot days and extreme heat, besides water scarcity in the future because of global warming. There could also be coral reef bleaching and erosion in the coast, where the sea level would rise.”
He added that the carbon emissions in the UAE were of high proportions. “It is about 39 tonnes per capita while the global average is only about five tonnes per capita,” he remarked.
The global warming the world over is much more in this century and the European Union is trying to ink a policy that will reduce and stabilise the phenomenon, noted Tveitdal.
Dr Basel Dayyani, Associate Professor of Information Technology at AUD and a former NASA scientist, said that eating meat could actually add to the climate change and it caused more harm than vehicle carbon emission.
“In the United States, a person consumes 270 pounds of meat a year while in India it is only about 11 pounds. The UAE is also a meat-eating society and there should be a change from meat eating to grain eating,” he said.
According to him, to meet the growing demands of meat eaters globally, more cattle were grazed, which, in turn, caused deforestation, affecting the ability of nature to absorb these emissions.
Hadi Malek Zadeh, a management student at AUD, said, “There is not enough information on the issue. Television and radio should be used to promote awareness among people. Besides, they should give us solutions to the problem and how we can do our bit in helping the climate.”