Winter storm brings devastation to Syria and neighbors

Erika Solomon and Oliver Holmes in Reuters: The worst winter storm in two decades has hit the eastern Mediterranean this week, bringing destruction and death to Syria and its neighbors who are already dealing with a refugee crisis from the country's civil war.

Opposition activists in Syria, where war has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and cut off access to food, fuel and power for cities and towns, say dozens of people have died there in four days of relentless extreme weather.

At least 17 people have also died due to the storm in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Schools in some areas have been shut for days, refugee camps flooded and villages isolated by closed roads. Meteorological agencies in Israel and Lebanon both called it the worst storm in 20 years.

Snowfall in the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo did not halt the fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, which has killed more than 60,000 people in the past 21 months....

Winter in the village of Deirmama, Masyaf, Hama Governorate, Syria. The old mosque is covered with snow. A 2007 shot by Ammagaro., Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Temperatures to rise by six degrees in Middle East countries

Laurence Caramel in the Guardian (UK): Countries in the Middle East and north Africa will be among those hardest hit by global warming, unless the upward trend for greenhouse gas emissions can be checked, the World Bank warned last month at the Doha climate change conference.

There will be lower rainfall, higher temperatures and continuing desertification, said Rachel Kyte, World Bank vice-president for sustainable development, during her presentation of the report on Adaptation to a Changing Climate in the Arab Countries.

According to the forecasts, average temperatures could rise by 3C between now and 2050. But night temperatures in city centres could increase by double that figure. The report notes that over the last three decades 50 million people have been affected by climate disasters. Severe flooding is now a recurrent event. But the increasing scarcity of water resources is the biggest challenge for countries in the region, which already have some of the lowest per capita reserves in the world.

Kuwait and Qatar depend on desalination plants for almost 40% of their needs. With demand for water forecast to increase by 60% over the next 30 years, due to population growth and changing ways of life, the World Bank fears there is a high risk of shortages and conflict. Measures to adapt to climate change are still limited, even if a regional strategy for reducing the risks of natural disasters has been adopted.

The lack of reliable data is a stumbling block for any preventive measures. The launch of a research centre, announced by Qatar last month, could help remedy this situation. Funded by the Qatar Foundation, in partnership with the Potsdam Institute, the centre will focus on the impact of climate change on countries in the Gulf....

A natural arch in Jebel Kharaz, Jordan, shot by Etan J. Tal, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Climate likely to hit Pakistan and region severely

Oman Daily Observer: As the Bay of Bengal is cooling down and the North Arabian Sea is warming up, the number of tropical cyclones has increased owing to the temperature shifting trend. Data collected from 56 meteorological stations in Pakistan shows a sharp rise in temperature during the first decade of the 21st century, except the year 2005, while a rise of four degrees centigrade is expected to occur within the century in the Indus delta region.

Impacts included loss of vegetation, deforestation and irregular precipitation, says a study, part of the Synthesis Report 2012, which was released on Sunday. The report provides a summary of results of 11 studies carried out over the past two years (2011, 2012) under the Building Capacity on Climate Change Adaptation in the Coastal Areas of Pakistan, a Worldwide Fund for Nature-Pakistan project jointly administered with partners LEAD-Pakistan and WWF-UK with the financial support of European Union.

Conducted by Pakistan’s chief meteorologist Dr Ghulam Rasul, the study titled Climate Data Modeling Analysis presents eye-opening climatic trends that have been observed in the country in a decade….

World Bank Group : Urgent action needed on climate change in Arab world

4-traders: The impact of climate change will be especially acute in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, according to a new World Bank Group report, and immediate action will be needed to avoid the projected consequences of worsening water shortages and rising food insecurity. Adaptation to a Changing Climate in the Arab Countries provides a comprehensive assessment of the threat to the region posed by increasingly severe weather, and offers a set of policy options for the urgent task of managing current effects and building resilience against those yet to come.

"Reducing vulnerability to climate change will require concerted action on multiple levels," said Rachel Kyte, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development. "Political leadership now, will be critical in establishing climate change as a national and regional priority."

The Arab world has been adapting to climate change for centuries. There is a long history and tradition of coping with the associated challenges, such as changes in temperature and rainfall. New climate change risks are emerging at a much faster rate, including the prospect of a world that is four degrees hotter, and resilience built up over years is being severely tested.

These risks have been identified and assessed in the new climate report which was prepared in partnership with the League of Arab States, involving specialists, researchers, policymakers and civil society organizations from across the region. The report reinforces the warning that decades of poverty reduction efforts could be reversed as contained in the recent World Bank publication, Turn Down The Heat: Why a 4° C Warmer World Must be Avoided....