Vital to dugongs, sea turtles, fish nurseries and carbon storage, seagrass meadows are among the ocean’s most critical – and at the same time most overlooked – ecosystems. Yet, they are disappearing at alarming rates around the world. Scientists from across the region gathered in Abu Dhabi for the first Arabian Seagrass Workshop last week, […]
Developing countries including most Middle East states have yet to use a new $300 billion climate fund to draw up plans to go green – blaming global turmoil and choosing to “wait for others” to go first, The National has been told. Armed with the $300 billion pledge, countries had a February deadline to reveal how they would help tackle global warming. […]
The UAE has entered an unusually intense, early heatwave, with temperatures already climbing past 44°C in recent days – a sweltering sign of what experts warn will be a hotter, longer summer. Dr Ahmed Habib at the National Centre of Meteorology told The National that the country is currently gripped by a thermal low pressure system, […]
As evidence continues to pour in showing that climate change’s impacts disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities around the globe, so, too, do stories showing that these communities can also pay outsized costs to implement climate solutions. Yet, in examining the available body of data and literature detailing how different countries have rolled out climate change mitigation […]
Dubai residents are being invited to have their mobile phones at the ready to join an international effort to document urban wildlife and deepen understanding of biodiversity. The annual City Nature Challenge got under way on Friday, with nature-lovers from hundreds of cities invited to photograph and record wild plants, animals and fungi using the iNaturalist […]
Scientists warn that this could be “something that’s completely changing the face of our planet”. Harmful bleaching of the world’s coral has grown to include 84 per cent of the ocean’s reefs. It is the most intense event of its kind in recorded history, the International Coral Reef Initiative announced Wednesday. It’s the fourth global bleaching […]
Studies that link worsening allergies in Europe with climate change and elevated concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. Seasonal allergies are becoming more intense and protracted due to climate change, according to a new study. Warming conditions are lengthening pollen seasons around the world, researchers from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health […]
Despite the ever increasing body of scientific and real-life evidence for the accelerating pace of global temperature rise, climate campaigners fear the EU executive is looking at ways to introduce loopholes before proposing a target to reduce Europe’s carbon footprint. Climate campaigners and green groups have urged the European Union to urgently table an overdue […]
If people harboured any lingering doubts about the threat climate change poses to the Middle East, two events this week should be more than enough to dispel them. In Iraq, an enormous sandstorm struck the country’s southern and central regions leading to darkened cities shrouded in a dusty orange haze, as airports were forced to shut down […]
One year ago today, Dubai was brought to a standstill. Cars floated along submerged roads. Malls and schools closed. Flights were grounded. In just 12 hours, 100mm of rain fell – the amount the city typically receives in a year and the heaviest rainfall since records began in 1949. On the first anniversary of the deluge, the […]
