A Climate Change Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it painfully clear that no economic solution is possible without a public health solution. In fact, anything short of a safe, effective vaccine or cure would mean some kind of permanent changes to how we live — either we modify our habits and lifestyles to reduce human contact, or just learn to accept higher risk of catching and spreading the virus. Over the next several decades, there is a clear parallel with climate change, although with far greater consequences. In the longer-term, there is no economic solution without an environmental solution.
Effects of climate change
Due to our geographic location and the fact that Bahrain is a collection of low-lying islands, the effects of climate change will manifest themselves in multiple different ways (I, for one, am terrified by these). A warmer climate will raise sea levels, with one 2007 paper estimating that a “moderate” scenario of a 1.0 meter rise would inundate 13.95% of the Bahrain’s total land area, and a “pessimistic” scenario of 1.5 meter sea level rise would inundate more than 17% — A figure from the paper is shown below. Although the areas at risk are mainly in the south of the island (sorry durrat), they also include parts of Muharraq, Sitra and Hawar (not shown).
It also goes without saying that a warmer climate would mean, well, a warmer climate. We’re already seeing this. July 2020 was the hottest July ever in Bahrain since 1902. 2017 had the highest average annual temperature on record (it only goes up to 2018). As temperatures continue rising, a 2015 study estimates that “by the end of the century certain population centres in the same region are likely to experience temperature levels that are intolerable to humans”. That’s us. The most extreme 5% of summers today will become normal summer days in the future. Represented visually, the figure below from the Pal & Eltahir paper shows extreme “wet-bulb” temperatures for our region — focus on squares (a) and (c), which are the historical 30-year average vs. the “business-as-usual” case by the end of the century. We are literally right in the middle of the most heavily affected area on the map.
Thank goodness for air conditioning, though, right? Well, sort of. It is a bit of a cruel irony that AC’s are highly energy-intense, so as the world becomes warmer, more air conditioning leads to higher GHG emissions and even more warming (unless the power sector itself is decarbonized). Increased energy use can lead to strains on the system, which can make power outages more likely. In such heat, losing power can become dangerous or even deadly. California — the largest economy in the richest country in the world — has been experiencing rolling blackouts this month for similar reasons.
That’s not all, though. Higher temperatures have other deleterious effects. Outdoor machinery can malfunction at extreme temperatures. Planes can’t operate during take-offs and landings. Rising sea levels can intrude into groundwater resources, which make up about half of our water supply, placing additional stress on an already water-scarce situation. Warmer oceans will also kill off species of marine life and lead to a loss of biodiversity, or whatever we currently have left anyway. 90% of fish stocks have already been depleted due to overfishing. Things just don’t look great.
So what do we do?
Given the complex global nature of the problem, each of us independently reducing our individual carbon footprint won’t solve much. Even if Bahrain, as an entire country, was to become carbon neutral, that would reduce a total of 0.08% of global CO2 emissions. So, regardless of how successful our own mitigation efforts are, we remain fully exposed to outcomes outside of our control (this reminds me of how affected we are now to fluctuations in the price of oil).
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the effort to reduce emissions. Individually, our personal actions reflect our moral choices and can collectively reshape societal norms and behaviours (personally, I’ve substantially cut meat from my diet due to the emissions associated with beef production). Nationally, we are signatories on international pacts and agreements. As far as I can tell, our latest communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2012 involved four strategic elements: “public engagement, educational reform, institutional coordination, and technical capacity building”. The world is also steadily moving away from oil — we should be diversifying too. We’ve seen some good policies come out recently, including renewable energy action plans and projects and bans on plastic bags , but we probably need more and more quickly.
Just as importantly as mitigation efforts, however, are policies to adapt to a new normal. Bahrain’s latest Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) submission to the UN in 2015 listed several adaptation strategies and actions being taken, yet these are limited in scope e.g. establishing the National Water Resources Council in 2009 or reducing traffic times. We need to be using water resources more efficiently, adapting building codes to become better insulators for both new and existing buildings, investing in more efficient cooling systems (I hear trees are good for this), and doing plenty of other things I am sure I don’t know about. The impacts of such policies take years to bear fruit, so starting early is necessary.
We will need to fund these efforts, and with oil prices forecast to be fairly low during the next several years and our government already over-leveraged, the only alternatives are austerity or taxes (or another bailout). Levying corporate and income taxes on the most wealthy is a good start. Using those fund to provide targeted grants to encourage private sector businesses to work on these challenges could be one solution. It’s also worth noting that the 2020 government budget only allocated BD 4.6 million to the “Environmental Protection Sector”, or less than 0.2% of total recurrent expenditures. That needs to be increased.
As this pandemic is resolved (hopefully soon), we should re-imagine what we want our society to look like and what the purpose of all our economic activity is. We have a lot of challenges to deal with over the next few years, and COVID-19 has only made many of those much more difficult. Yet, in the long-term, climate change just might be the biggest issue for our generation. As we get out of the frying pan, let’s try not to step into the fire.
(You can also refer to my earlier posts about the labor market and the pension fund problems here)
