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The number of adverse weather events induced by climate change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been increasing in recent years. What will be the impact of climate change on infrastructure, national economies and development plans across the region?
- Climate change-induced natural phenomena like wildfires will continue to expose a lack of regional cooperation and create operational disruption for businesses operating in North Africa.
- Sustained heatwaves and an overall increase in temperatures and air conditioning requirements demand will continue to put strain on power supply energy infrastructure in countries such as Iraq and Pakistan.
- Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries will face a growing threat of a productivity slowdown in sectors like construction owing to extreme temperatures. They will also face the need for increased infrastructure investment to withstand the consequences of climate change.
- The negative impact on local economies, particularly those dependent on agriculture, such as Morocco and Syria, will fuel popular grievances and create scope for civil unrest.
Catching fire
The global rise in average temperatures, particularly in the hotter months in middle of the year, has already started to pose operational threats for businesses in the region while highlighting the somewhat limited capabilities of affected countries to prevent or mitigate those threats.
North African countries have seen a rise in wildfires in recent years. Algeria recorded 97 wildfires in the span of three days in July 2023; these rapidly spread eastward, causing further wildfires in north-western Tunisia. Similarly, Morocco recorded at least 395 wildfires in 2023 across the kingdom, at least 70% of which were concentrated in the north of the country. The wildfires caused dozens of casualties and serious damage to local infrastructure, leading to operational disruption driven by the destruction of electricity networks and mass road closures.
Morocco and Algeria have since further invested in fire-fighting planes, which will help both countries control the spread of wildfires but not prevent them. A lack of cooperation between Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia will continue to limit their capacity to control the spread of wildfires, as seen in July 2023 when the lack of coordination between Algerian and Tunisian authorities allowed wildfires in Algeria to spread into nearby forests in Tunisia.
Beat the heat: infrastructural challenges
The sustained rise in global temperatures will pose a threat to both MENA countries with established and well-functioning infrastructure and those with currently inadequate infrastructure. Extended periods of high temperatures have led to shortages in power supply due to rising air-conditioning demand. Accordingly, power outages have become more frequent in Iraq and Pakistan during in the hotter months (June-September in Iraq and March-July in Pakistan).
For countries where the basic provision of electricity is unlikely to be immediately affected as is the case in GCC countries, rising temperatures will nonetheless pose a threat to their power grid capacity. About 70% of the electricity in the UAE in the hotter months (May-September) is consumed by air conditioning and other cooling systems.
Although GCC countries maintain well-functioning infrastructure, sustained and high increases in global temperatures threaten to strain existing infrastructure. This also applies to roads that are currently designed to withstand the existing temperatures in the GCC, but that could degrade in the coming years with further temperature increases. In countries like Pakistan – in rural areas and, less commonly, in urban areas such as Karachi – roads have melted due to high temperatures.
GCC countries will increasingly require innovative and more sophisticated technologies to maintain the provision of public services and infrastructure, such as adequate roads and functioning cooling systems for individual, commercial and public use. Countries facing existing challenges with regards to service provision and infrastructure, such as Iraq or Pakistan, will remain ill-equipped to confront the increasingly challenging climate conditions. Insufficient political will to tackle the challenges will lead to further degradations in those countries’ infrastructure – sustaining and increasing operational challenges for businesses.
Snowballing grievances
Climate change will also continue to negatively impact domestic economies in the MENA region, at times creating opportunities for civil unrest. In Morocco, which relies on agriculture for 19% of its GDP and provides many of the employment opportunities, severe water scarcity has led to six years of consecutive droughts. In Syria, desertification caused by extreme and sustained water scarcity in the Syrian steppe will also continue to negatively impact the livelihoods of locals relying on agriculture or grazing for their cattle. Loss of livelihood because of climate change will pose a significant civil unrest threat, creating incentives for protests against local governments and their inability to protect their populations’ livelihoods.
In countries where mass protest movements remain unlikely, such as those in the GCC, climate change will nonetheless pose a threat to their domestic economies. As scrutiny over labour rights persists and Gulf countries remain keen to comply with international standards, extended periods of high temperatures will reduce the number of hours per day that outdoor workers, like construction workers, are allowed to work to protect them from the heat. This will slow projects and overall productivity in key sectors, such as construction and infrastructure.
In Pakistan, climate change-induced large-scale floods will continue to generate significant loss of export-based and locally consumed raw materials. This will negatively impact GDP and growth rates, in addition to causing massive losses for the state. This was the case in 2022, when large-scale floods were estimated to have cost USD 33bn in losses. In the Gulf states, despite relatively viable infrastructure, affected states such as the UAE and Oman suffered extensive damage following the April 2024 flood, leading to USD 850m in losses. This led the Emirati government to announce a USD 22bn plan to develop a functioning sewerage system, among other infrastructure investments.
Climate change-induced economic losses will make civil unrest and protests against local governments more likely, negatively impacting political stability in the affected countries. For countries where civil unrest and its negative effect on political stability is limited, such as Gulf countries, local economies will be confronted with a potential slowing of productivity owing to disruptive weather conditions. They will also need increased infrastructure investment to prevent or mitigate the negative impact of adverse weather conditions on businesses operations.