First published in 2019 by
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Introduction copyright Hamid Pouran and Hassan Hakimian 2019
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Foreword
Tony Allan
The Middle East region has endured a century of challenges marked by external interventions, accelerating climate change and population increase. The result has been growing political and social instability. The regions political systems have been overstretched with recurrent uncertainty, ongoing political conflict and bouts of intense armed conflict. As a result, regional and international media have enough bad news from the Middle East to regularly fill in television screens and pages of the print media.
In these circumstances it comes as no surprise that the environment does not make it on to front pages, as bad environmental news generally tends to be under-reported. Sadly, this pattern is not limited to the Middle East alone as under-reporting is also common in major economies such as the United States, the EU and other advanced and diverse economies.
The experience of trying to have sound environmental science considered in international negotiations has everywhere proven to be a very disorderly procedure. Short-term interests at both national and global levels, blind to the need for environmental stewardship, have determined problematic outcomes. The classic case is the battle being waged by those calling for precautionary policies on greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change politics has become an endless, toxic, frustrating international political process.
The challenge taken up by the editors and authors of this volume is to foreground very effectively the need in the Middle East for the adoption of environmental policies, informed by science. The sustainable security of the peoples and governments of the region depends on the reversal of the evident, but generally ignored, degradation of the regions natural ecosystems. These dangerous trends are identified by the authors in this volume, but they regret that they have not yet found a way to get them effectively reported and discussed by legislators.
A number of very important messages are highlighted by the authors. In a world in which it is possible to manage public awareness by under-reporting politically destabilising bad news, the chapters in this book provide examples of how ecosystem crises can be made worse. One of the important contributions of the book is the reminder that invisible elements of the global political economy make it possible for governments to enjoy a version of water and food security that is vital but whose lack must remain politically invisible.
No one is aware certainly not the peoples and legislators of Middle Eastern economies that they have enjoyed a version of water and food security that has been invisible, and therefore politically feasible. This invisible system has, at no cost to the regions economies, also protected its environmental capital such as its water ecosystems.
The global food system has provided the solution of water security and some costless environmental protection. The Middle East economies have depended more than any other region in the world on the global food system, which has for the past century provided food, more importantly underpriced food, for any economy in the world that has not had enough water to ensure its food self-sufficiency.
By about 1970, the region as a whole could no longer feed itself and became a net food importer. If international food prices had reflected the true costs of production, as well as the costs of water consumed in producing it and the costs of water stewardship in the exporting economy, the global food market would have suffered an existential threat. In practice, internationally traded staple foods have been underpriced and the exporting economies have borne the environmental costs of production. As a consequence, water-scarce economies have been able without any political stress to import themselves out of their otherwise impossible predicaments of water and food insecurity.
The authors in this volume have made a very significant contribution by providing the scientific fundamentals on the status of the Middle Eastern environmental capital shared by the economies of the region. More importantly, they have drawn attention to and critiqued the character and capacity of the regions governance systems. They have many important things to say about the necessary and feasible social and environmental policies. They show how they are needed to reshape the expectations of society and create strong and diverse economies that protect the regions environmental resources and manage the atmosphere, water and biodiversity sustainably.
Tony Allan
SOAS, University of London and Kings College London
July 2018
1
Introduction
Hamid Pouran and Hassan Hakimian
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is well-known for its abundant fossil fuel resources and important geostrategic position. The regions popular image is, however, over-shadowed by violence and transboundary conflicts that threaten its stability with huge global implications. This perception has inevitably overshadowed the regions other pressing challenges.
In recent years, a combination of the impact of climate change and growing environmental fragility has preoccupied policymakers in the MENA countries. Yet ongoing conflict and rivalries have thwarted initiatives and collaborative action to address these challenges. Recurrent environmental setbacks and rapid depletion of the regions natural resources hence continue to pose major threats to the long-term economic, political and social stability of the region. This is despite the fact that the challenges from MENAs environmental insecurity in the 21st century may have potentially more adverse consequences for the region than the toll afflicted by conflict and violence. This book is an attempt at highlighting some of these challenges and exploring ways in which they can be addressed on a collective scale.
Environmental challenges arise in, and make their impact on, the specific contexts in which they operate. In the MENA context, demographic factors have contributed to the urgency with which environmental issues have presented themselves. Over the past five decades, the region has experienced some of the highest rates of population growth in the world. According to the World Bank,1 the average population of the MENA region has increased almost 400% during this period with some parts notably, the UAE and Qatar experiencing growth rates exceeding 1,000%. Such high growth rates inevitably pose major environmental challenges including water shortages, land degradation and pollution. Despite their vast fossil fuel resources and the potential benefits of extensive solar irradiation, the regions arid and semi-arid climate has imposed major risks and limitations on these countries. For instance, rapid urbanisation throughout the region, the absence of adequate legal frameworks in addition to failure to implement national and international environmental protection guidelines have exacerbated environmental fragility in many parts of the region. Future forecasts and climate change projections troublingly suggest this condition is expected to get worse with further deterioration in the pipeline unless action is taken to stem the tide.
