As if the Middle East is not in crisis enough, a new report published in the Geological Society of America’s May issue, warns that Egypt will face nationwide water shortages within 7 years. The report further predicts dwindling freshwater supplies and increasing salinity levels of the Nile delta’s agricultural land due to sea level rise caused by our burning of fossil fuels which result in heat trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This might make the north African nation uninhabitable by 2100 the authors conclude.
Jano Charbel, of Mada reports:
The non-profit US organization’s report attributes these changes to the effects of climate change and increased human activity near the Nile in recent decades, including the construction of dams on the river in Egypt and in Ethiopia.
“A minimal relative sea-level rise of ~100 cm is predicted between now and the year 2100 at the Nile delta’s coast,” the report reads. If the prediction is accurate, the new sea level will be approximately one meter higher than the average sea level along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, which, in addition to land subsidence and salinification of agricultural lands in the Nile Delta, will likely have a significant impact on Egypt’s population, agricultural production and the overall habitability.
“It is not necessarily the case that whole towns and cities along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast will be underwater, but seeping seawater and the increasing salinity of soils may make the area uninhabitable,” Ahmed al-Droubi, an environmentalist and coordinator for the Egyptians Against Coal Campaign, tells Mada Masr.
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While many of the predications carry grave future developments, incremental changes are already being observed. The GSA report asserts that soil in the delta region is being submerged at a rate of 1 cm each year due to rising sea levels, coupled with land subsidence and sediment compaction, and that the intrusion of seawater is already resulting in highly saline soils along the northern portion of the Nile Delta.
Most of the fresh water that reaches the Nile Delta is diverted and channeled into complex and inefficient networks for the distribution of agricultural water. Open irrigation networks continue to result in a high rate of evaporation of the Nile’s fresh water, a notable fact as a report issued by the Irrigation Ministry states that agriculture accounts for around 85 percent of Egypt’s water consumption.
If, as suggested by a comprehensive new review in the journal Science, 2°C of global warming would lock in at least 20 feet (6 meters) of eventual sea level rise. We are close to blowing past the 1.5 C target and if we do not cut emissions drastically we will blow past the target of 2 C as well.
The polar ice caps right now are a major contributor to sea level rise. The US Navy animation of Arctic sea ice is terrifying as it reflects the fragile state of sea ice which is remarkably thin. Thin sea ice this early promises that the Arctic Ocean will have majority black water. Dark surfaces in the polar regions absorb more heat from the sun than a frozen white surface of ice which bounces the solar energy back to space. This feedback loop of melting sea ice will further melt Greenland and Antarctica glaciers which adds more and more meltwater to the oceans.
Damien Carrington writing for The Guardian reports on Senior Military Leaders warning that climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century.
Brig Gen Stephen Cheney, a member of the US Department of State’s foreign affairs policy board and CEO of the American Security Project, said: “Climate change could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. We’re already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world because of food scarcity, water insecurity and extreme weather, and this is set to become the new normal.
Climate change impacts are also acting as an accelerant of instability in parts of the world on Europe’s doorstep, including the Middle East and Africa,” Cheney said. “There are direct links to climate change in the Arab Spring, the war in Syria, and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency in sub-Saharan Africa.”
After Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, won the US presidential election in November, Cheney said he expected senior military officials to impress upon Trump the grave threat posed to national security by global warming. “I’ve got to believe there are enough folks on the national security side that we can make a dent in this.”
R Adm Neil Morisetti, a former commander of the UK maritime forces and the UK’s climate and energy security envoy, said: “Climate change is a strategic security threat that sits alongside others like terrorism and state-on-state conflict, but it also interacts with these threats. It is complex and challenging; this is not a concern for tomorrow, the impacts are playing out today.”
IRIN reports that migration from natural disasters and climate change is not considered a protected status as these migrants do not have refugee status. The international system is in a state of denial over global warming. It is, as the US military states, a threat multiplier exacerbating the potential for other drivers of forced migration such as conflict; so refugees fleeing war may also be fleeing climate change.
It’s difficult to say exactly how many people around the world will be forced to move as the effects of climate change grow starker in the coming decades. But mass displacement is already happening as climate change contributes to natural disasters such as desertification, droughts, floods, and powerful storms.
About 203 million people around the world were displaced by natural disasters between 2008 and 2015, and the risk has doubled since the 1970s, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council’s
2016 Global Report on Internal Displacement.
Most of the displacement takes place within countries, but those driven across borders are not considered refugees, because the 1951 Refugee Convention recognises only people fleeing war or persecution.
“There is a legal gap to assist and protect people who cross borders in the context of disasters and climate change,” Marine Franck, a UNHCR climate change and disaster displacement officer, told IRIN.
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