LETTER FROM BEIRUT
Baghdad woke up on Monday, May 16, to a thick cloud of orange dust, blinding and suffocating, for the ninth time since the beginning of April. Hospital emergency rooms filled up, planes were grounded. In a similar weather episode on May 5, one person died and 5,000 others were hospitalized with respiratory problems. From the desert province of Anbar (in the west) to southern Iraq, sandstorms are not uncommon this season, but their frequency and severity are increasing. However, Iraq, ranked among the five countries in the world most vulnerable to climate change and desertification, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), is ill-prepared to deal with it.
“In the past, we had two sandstorms a year, now there are about twenty. They also have a much higher density., says Jaafar Jotheri, geoarchaeologist at Qadisiya University, as well as Durham in the United Kingdom. And, in the next two decades, Iraq could face “two hundred and seventy-two days of dust” a year, warned Issa Al-Fayyad, an environment ministry official, in April. Gold, “Unlike other countries in the region such as Iran, Saudi Arabia or Jordan, Iraq does not have adequate infrastructure, appropriate windows in homes or greenhouses to protect crops”continues Mr. Jotheri, who warns of the potentially disastrous social and economic consequences for the country.
Uncontrolled urban expansion
In a report on the impact of climate change in Iraq published in 2021, the United Nations estimated that “Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns have led to recurrent droughts, desertification and frequent sandstorms”. Heat waves, marked by temperatures exceeding 50°C, are becoming more frequent and the average temperature could still increase two degrees by 2050.
By this time, Iraq could also lose an additional 20% of its water resources, estimates the World Bank. The lack of rainfall – 150 millimeters per year – and the drop in the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates, in particular due to the construction of dams in Turkey and Iran, lead to soil salinization. The Water Stress Index puts Iraq at 3.7 points out of 5 (the highest level of water scarcity) and by 2040 this figure will rise to 4.6 with total drought as a consequence. Desertification already affects 39% of the country’s surface, and the country loses about 100 square kilometers of arable land every year.
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