The Arab region, characterized by arid climate conditions but diverse economic wealth, is one of the most vulnerable regions to the adverse impacts of climate change. Rising temperature, reduced rainfall, increased rates of evaporation as well as increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events exacerbate readily existing challenges of cooling demands, water scarcity, food security and resilience of Arab economies. In addition, climate change presents unique challenge for oil-producing economies, threatening oil export revenues. In this lecture, the unique impacts of climate change in the Arab region will be discussed. The lecture will also address the question of how COPs 27 and COP 28 hosted by two Arab countries, Egypt and the UAE, can present an opportunity to address the unique challenges faced by the Arab countries.

Bio: 
Aisha Al-Sarihi is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute. Her areas of research interest include political economy of environmental sustainability, energy policy, renewables, and climate policies, with a focus on the Arab region. In addition to scientific publications, her research has appeared in different media outlets including Al Arabiya TV, Reuters, The Associated Press, The New Arab, Arab News, Asia Times, Earth Island Journal, and Oman Daily Observer.
She is a former research associate at KAPSARC, visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. She also served as a research officer at the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Middle East Centre. Al-Sarihi holds a PhD from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, and an MSc and a BSc, with distinction, in environmental science from Sultan Qaboos University.