A new study jointly released by MIT and the Loyola Marymount University, carries bad new for the gulf. The study concludes that climate change patterns could leave major cities in the Persian Gulf region, like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, unfit for human habitation.
In case you’re thinking of abstract glacier-melts, intense typhoons and rising sea levels, this is about something that can be felt up-close already — the summers will just become unbearably hot (scientifically speaking).
Areas in the Middle East are already experiencing some of the most extreme hot temperatures on Earth, and they will be the ones where human survival may become impossible.
In what environmentalists would see as dramatic irony or poetic justice, a region whose economy rests largely on extraction of fossil fuels will be potentially uninhabitable because of the havoc these fuels have created. Greenhouse gas emissions are the main culprit behind global warming.
The research focused on Persian Gulf cities and foresaw what the climatic conditions would be like there in the year 2100. This doomsday scenario can be prevented though, if only the world sits up and takes notice.
When world leaders meet this December in Paris for the COP 21 summit, they will have to reach consensus on an agreement to curb fossil fuels. If they succeed, it will potentially allow people to thrive in the region where the story of human civilization first began.