Extreme heat waves, poor rains and, droughts, climate change across the Middle East are becoming one of the reasons for the displacement of millions of people living in the countries in the Middle East.
The world’s most water-poor region, with the attendant risk of environmentally detrimental urban expansion and the potential for resource conflicts.
Signs of these changes are recorded on the ground by the head of the Egyptian Farmers’ Syndicate.
“Young people migrate from rural areas abroad or to big cities to work.”
He believes that climatic factors are behind this migration.
Although Egypt mainly suffers from “its large population and being one of the most rugged countries in the world”, new phenomena related to climate change, such as “the emergence of new parasites”, make agriculture less profitable than before.”
As per the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “90% of refugees in the world come from regions highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.”
“If the population cannot provide food and cultivate the land, then there is no other way for them but displacement.”
Natural disasters in 2021 “prompted around three million people to escape their homes in the Middle East and Africa.”
“We expect the situation to deteriorate.” Climate experts predict that by 2060, Egypt will lose half of the agricultural sector’s productivity.
The increasing intensity of heatwaves and a declining availability of water leading to drought have made the Middle East one of the most water-stressed regions across the globe, with climate change endangering to displace millions of people.
Hussein Abu Saddam, head of the farmers’ syndicate in Egypt, which is hosting the COP27 global climate summit in November, told AFP he is already witnessing a climate-induced exodus from the countryside.
Agriculture in Egypt,” one of the aridest countries in the world,” has grown even less profitable because of new climate-linked hazards such as “the appearance of new parasites.”