Entire UAE, Qatar, Bahrain populations vulnerable to extreme heat, study says

Jack Dutton

May 22, 2023

Yemen water shortage — Yemeni women carry jerrycans to fill them with water from a public tap amid an acute shortage of water supply to houses in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on Oct. 8, 2015. Yemen is one of the countries in the Middle East vulnerable to extreme heat due to climate change. — Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images

The entire populations of Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could be vulnerable to extreme heat if the planet's temperature continues to be on the rise in the coming years, a new report warned on Monday.

The study published in the Nature Sustainability journal released on Monday looked at different countries and how exposed they were to unprecedented heat — median annual temperatures of 29 C (84 F) or more — in a 1.5 C (34.7 F) or 2.7 C (36.9 F) rise in the temperature of the planet compared to pre-industrial levels.

The study found that 419 million people in 57 countries were vulnerable to 1.5 C of global warming in the coming years, while 1.99 billion people in 122 nations were vulnerable to warming of 2.7 C. The 2015 Paris Agreement said that millions of people would be vulnerable to the adverse impacts of global warming if the 1.5 C threshold was crossed. The World Meteorological Organization gave a grim warning last week that for the first time, global temperatures are now more likely than not to surpass the Paris threshold in the next five years.

Life threatening heat in Gulf