Climate change means higher utility bills for consumers in Middle East
UAE residents could face increased household bills as a result of climate change, a researcher said as he embarks on a project to understand the effects of global warming on Abu Dhabi emirate.
Prof Taoufik Ksiksi, of UAE University in Al Ain, has started a study that will assess the impact of climate change on the economy, including its effect on consumers and the environment, such as changes in land use.
The project seeks to understand what effects climate change has had so far to be able to predict what the longer-term effect could be.
“One of the aspects we’re looking at is the use of energy in households. These are aspects we may face from a regional point of view; the use of energy may increase,” said Prof Ksiksi, who works in the department of biology.
The project, which includes Emirati PhD student Latifa Al Balooshi, involves listening to the opinions of residents, farmers and specialists in Abu Dhabi emirate.
Among the questions being asked is how household spending has changed over the past quarter of a century.
More than 300 surveys have been collected so far and, although the results have yet to be fully analysed, Prof Ksiksi indicated that many respondents had suggested that their bills had increased.
Climate change analysts not involved in the UAEU study agree that Gulf consumers will have to spend more to cool their homes.
“In Abu Dhabi, it’s pretty clear, you don’t spend any money on winter heating, but a lot of money on air conditioning, and that’s going to go up substantially,” said Prof Richard Tol, author of the book Climate Economics.
On the other hand, Prof Tol, a professor of economics at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, said that increases in carbon dioxide could improve agricultural production, albeit for a limited period of time, driving down the price of food imports.
“If there’s more carbon dioxide, plants grow faster and plants become more water-efficient, so more drought-tolerant,” he said.
“[According to] current projections, at least for the first half of this century, that will drive down food prices for imports.”
Acting against this is the possible disruption of food supply chains, which could increase the price of food, about 80 per cent of which in the UAE is imported.
Many climatic effects could damage regional agriculture. There have already been reports of an increase in dust storms in the Middle East, of longer droughts and higher extreme temperatures.
A German research institute has forecast that the Mena region will experience growth in summer temperatures twice as fast as will the planet overall. Pressure on water resources are forecast to increase.
Another consumer-related effect of climate change could be a rise in house insurance premiums, especially in coastal areas, suggested Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
Sea-level rises, which are running at about a third of a centimetre per year, according to the United States’ National Ocean Service, are making coastal properties more vulnerable to flooding.
“You might find you cannot get insurance because insurers will say it’s too high [a risk]; it’s happening around the world,” Mr Ward said.
The effect could be magnified by a possible increase in the intensity of storms like, Mr Ward suggested, the one in May that lashed Salalah in Oman, the largest storm yet recorded in the area.
“They might be rare events, but we may find these become more extreme,” he said; so sea-level rises combined with stronger storm surges could threaten low-lying areas.
In terms of climate change’s worldwide economic effects, a study in the journal Nature in 2015 forecast that the global economy would be almost a quarter smaller in 2100 than it would have been without temperature increases. The effects are likely to be uneven: some colder parts could enjoy an increase in productivity, while hot areas will probably suffer negative effects.
Mr Ward said that a key reason why climate change could affect the global economy is increased migration, which could be forced upon people as their homelands become less habitable.
The UAEU research is also looking at alterations in land use, helped by satellite data.
The study has already demonstrated that greening projects have significantly increased the vegetation in the emirate. Prof Ksiksi said that many forested areas could be positively affected as carbon dioxide concentrations increase, with faster plant growth and lower water use.
He acknowledged that the effects of climate change had not yet taken place over a long period of time, making forecasts of what is yet to happen harder.
“It’s a short period for longterm climate change to [have had an effect] ... we’ll try to use this information from the past to predict what’s going to happen in the future,” he said.
Climate change might be bad news for consumers but good news for the region’s agriculture