Tag Archives: Climate Change

As California fires blaze, homeowners fear losing insurance

Local residents react as numerous homes burn on a hillside during a wind driven wildfire in Ventura. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Suzanne Barlyn

(Reuters) – California homeowners and regulators have a new fear about wildfires ravaging the state: that insurers will drop coverage.

Massive, out-of-season fires in northern and southern California are causing billions of dollars in claims and challenging expectations of when and where to expect blazes. State law gives insurers more leeway to drop coverage than to raise rates, and some are taking the opportunity, concerning California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones.

Homes in the Sierra Nevada foothills were dropped after wildfires swept through the region in recent years, and some other Northern California homes also have been cut from rosters, Jones said.

“We may see more of it,” he added in an interview. Insurers must renew fire victims’ policies once, but after that homeowners could be driven to unusual, expensive policies.

Retired firefighter Dan Nichols of Oroville, California was surprised when Liberty Mutual dropped his coverage this year, following a wildfire in the region.

“I was shocked and angry,” said Nichols, 70, by email.

Liberty Mutual must “responsibly manage” its overall exposure to California’s wildfires as part of a strategy to safeguard its ability to pay homeowners’ claims, a spokesman said. The insurer still issues policies in California and its strategy is not in response to recent fires, he said.

Nichols found a better deal through AAA, but others are not as lucky. In San Andreas, a community northeast of San Francisco, homeowners typically use specialty insurers, known as “surplus lines carriers,” for policies that cost about 20 to 40 percent more than a mainstream insurer, said Fred Gerard, who owns an insurance agency in the area.

Insurers must be cautious by not covering too many homes in one area, said Janet Ruiz, a spokeswoman for the industry’s Insurance Information Institute. “They tend to spread their risk so they can pay claims,” Ruiz said.

COMPUTER MODELS

Drier weather and higher variability of weather patterns often seen as effects of climate change have led insurers to turn to new computer models that provide house-by-house predictions of risk, using factors such as local topography and brush cover, a change from past practices that were based on a region’s history of blazes.

“Relying solely on company history leaves many (insurers) exposed,” said Matt Nielsen, Senior Director, Global Governmental and Regulatory Affairs at modeler RMS. A new wave of models coming out next year will “revolutionize the way insurers understand and manage risk for wildfires,” he said.

“You can’t control mother nature, but you can identify her target zones,” wrote rival Verisk Analytics Inc in a brochure for its FireLine model.

Jones said the state was reviewing the new models, partly in light of drier weather conditions, more frequent, unpredictable and severe fires, and climate change.

A California poll by consumer advocacy group United Policyholders found that computer scoring was a reason for a significant number of policy cancellations in the last few years.

United Policyholders Executive Director Amy Bach said that the differences in scores generated by various models raised questions about their accuracy.

“We want to make sure it’s a fair system,” Bach said.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Peter Henderson and James Dalgleish)

G20 communique agreed apart from climate issue: EU officials

Delegates attend the official dinner at the Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall during the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Kay Nietfeld

By Paul Carrel and Noah Barkin

HAMBURG (Reuters) – World leaders meeting for a summit in Germany have agreed every aspect of a joint statement apart from the section on climate where the United States is pushing for a reference to fossil fuels, European Union officials said on Saturday.

The officials said aides had worked until 2 a.m. to finalize a communique for the Group of 20, overcoming differences on trade after U.S. officials agreed to language on fighting protectionism.

“The outcome is good. We have a communique. There is one issue left, which is on climate, but I am hopeful we can find a compromise,” said one EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have all the fundamentals.

“We have a G20 communique, not a G19 communique,” he added.

The section that needs to be resolved by the leaders relates to the U.S. insistence that there be a reference to fossil fuels, the official said.

With the final statement almost nailed down, the summit marked a diplomatic success for Chancellor Angela Merkel as she finessed differences with U.S. President Donald Trump, who arrived at the two-day summit isolated on a host of issues.

Trump, who on Friday found chemistry in his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, congratulated Merkel for her stewardship of the summit.

“You have been amazing and you have done a fantastic job. Thank you very much chancellor,” he said.

Trump and Putin on Friday discussed alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election but agreed to focus on future ties rather than dwell on the past, a result that was sharply criticized by leading Democrats in Congress.

For Merkel, the summit is an opportunity to show off her diplomatic skills ahead of a federal election in September, when she is seeking a fourth term in office.

She treated the leaders to a concert at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie on Friday night, where they listened to Beethoven while their aides began their all night slog to work out a consensus on trade that had eluded the leaders.

Trade policy has become more contentious since Trump entered the White House promising an “America First” approach.

The trade section in the statement the aides thrashed out read: “We will keep markets open noting the importance of reciprocal and mutually advantageous trade and investment frameworks and the principle of non-discrimination, and continue to fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices and recognize the role of legitimate trade defense instruments in this regard.”

CLIMATE CLASH

Climate change policy proved a sticking point, with the United States pressing for inclusion of wording about which other countries had reservations.

That passage read: “… the United States of America will endeavor to work closely with other partners to help their access to and use of fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently …”

The climate section took note of Trump’s decision last month to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate accord aimed at combating climate change, and reaffirmed the commitment of the other 19 members to the agreement.

Merkel chose to host the summit in Hamburg, the port city where she was born, to send a signal about Germany’s openness to the world, including its tolerance of peaceful protests.

As the leaders met on Saturday, police helicopters hovered overhead. Overnight, police clashed with anti-capitalist protesters seeking to disrupt the summit.

In the early morning, heavily armed police commandos moved in after activists had spent much of Friday attempting to wrest control of the streets from more than 15,000 police, setting fires, looting and building barricades.

The summit is being held only a few hundred meters from one of Germany’s most potent symbols of left-wing resistance, a former theater called the “Rote Flora” which was taken over by anti-capitalist squatters nearly three decades ago.

Police said 200 officers had been injured, 134 protesters temporarily detained and another 100 taken into custody.

(Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Noah Barkin and Janet Lawrence)

Trump pulling U.S. out of Paris climate deal: source

FILE PHOTO: The Eiffel tower is illuminated in green with the words "Paris Agreement is Done", to celebrate the Paris U.N. COP21 Climate Change agreement in Paris, France, November 4, 2016. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen/File Photo

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will follow through on a campaign pledge to pull the United States out of a global pact to fight climate change, a source briefed on the decision told Reuters, a move that should rally his support base at home while deepening a rift with U.S. allies.

Trump, who has previously called global warming a hoax, did not confirm the decision in a post on Twitter, saying only, “I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days.”

Trump had refused to endorse the landmark climate change accord at a summit of the G7 group of wealthy nations on Saturday, saying he needed more time to decide. He then tweeted that he would make an announcement this week.

The decision will put the United States in league with Syria and Nicaragua as the world’s only non-participants in the Paris Climate Agreement. It could have sweeping implications for the deal, which relies heavily on the commitment of big polluter nations to reduce emissions of gases scientists blame for sea level rise, droughts and more frequent violent storms.

The accord, agreed on by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015, aims to limit planetary warming in part by slashing carbon dioxide and other emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Under the pact, the United States committed to reducing its emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

Axios news outlet, which first reported the withdrawal, said details of the pullout are being worked out by a team that includes EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. The choice is between a formal withdrawal that could take three years or leaving the U.N. treaty that the accord is based on, which would be quicker but more extreme, according to the Axios report.

The decision to withdraw from the climate accord was influenced by a letter from 22 Republican U.S. senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling for an exit, Axios reported.

Former President Barack Obama, who helped broker the accord, praised the deal during a trip to Europe this month.

The United States is the world’s second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter behind China.

Supporters of the climate pact are concerned that a U.S. exit could lead other nations to weaken their commitments or also withdraw, softening an accord that scientists have said is critical to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

Canada, the European Union, and China have said they will honor their commitments to the pact even if the United States withdraws. A source told Reuters that India had also indicated it would stick by the deal.

PROMISE KEPT

Trump had vowed during his campaign to “cancel” the Paris deal within 100 days of becoming president, as part of an effort to bolster U.S. oil and coal industries. That promise helped rally supporters sharing his skepticism of global efforts to police U.S. carbon emissions.

After taking office, however, Trump faced pressure to stay in the deal from investors, international powers and business leaders, including some in the coal industry. He also had to navigate a split among his advisers on the issue.

Trump aides including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, lawyer Don McGahn and Peter Navarro, along with EPA chief Pruitt, argued hard for leaving the accord. They said the deal would require the U.S. government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which would hurt business.

Trump’s administration has already begun the process of killing Obama-era climate regulations.

The “stay-in” camp, which included Trump’s daughter Ivanka, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, had argued the United States could reduce its voluntary emission-cuts targets while still keeping a voice within the accord.

Oil majors Shell and Exxon Mobil have also supported the Paris pact, along with a number of Republican lawmakers. Several big coal companies, including Cloud Peak Energy, had publicly urged Trump to stay in the deal as a way to help protect the industry’s mining interests overseas, though others asked Trump to exit the accord to help ease regulatory pressures on domestic miners.

Trump has repeatedly expressed doubts about climate change, at times calling it a hoax to weaken U.S. industry. An overwhelming majority of scientists, however, say climate change is driven by human use of fossil fuels.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu)

Economies could shrink by mid century due to scarce water

A shrimp farm affected by drought is seen in Bac Lieu province, in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

By Sebastien Malo

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Economies across large swathes of the globe could shrink dramatically by mid-century as fresh water grows scarce due to climate change, the World Bank reported on Tuesday.

The Middle East could be hardest hit, with its gross domestic product slipping as much as 14 percent by 2050 unless measures are taken to reallocate water significantly, the Washington-based institution said in a report.

Such measures include efficiency efforts and investment in technologies such as desalination and water recycling, it said.

Global warming can cause extreme floods and droughts and can mean snowfall is replaced by rain, with higher evaporation rates, experts say.

It also can reduce mountain snow pack that provides water, and the melting of inland glaciers can deplete the source of runoff, they say. Also, a rise in sea level can lead to saltwater contaminating groundwater.

“When we look at any of the major impacts of climate change, they one way or the other come through water, whether it’s drought, floods, storms, sea level rise,” Richard Damania, World Bank lead economist and lead author of the report, told reporters in a telephone conference.

Fresh water shortages could take a toll on sectors from agriculture to energy, the World Bank said.

“Water is of course at the center of life, but it’s also at the center of economic activity,” Damania said.

Water scarcity would not have the same impact worldwide, and Western Europe and North American economies would likely be spared, according to the World Bank models.

But rising economies such as China and India could be hard hit, it said.

In the Sahel belt that stretches across Africa below the Sahara, GDP could well dip some 11 percent with water scarcity, the World Bank said. A similar impact would be felt in Central Asia, it said.

But measures to reallocate fresh water could show gains in some regions, the bank said.

For example, a shift in allocation could lead to GDP growth of about 11 percent by 2050 in Central Asia, the bank said.

The World Bank also advocated pricing water consumption, a proposal that has stirred controversy and is opposed by those who do not think water should not have any price tag.

“If you’re making money out of water, particularly if you’re using a lot of water as a commercial user, then it’s reasonable to suggest that you pay minimally enough to cover the cost of providing you with that water,” Damania said.

“This might well mean free water if you are exceedingly poor,” he said.

About a quarter of the world’s population, or some 1.6 billion people, live in countries where water already is scarce, according to the World Bank.

Last month, 175 nations signed a deal reached last year in Paris to slow global warming and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

(Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

New research suggests 20th century sea levels rose at quickest pace since 800 B.C.

Climate scientists studying the Earth’s sea levels have determined that it was “extremely likely” those waters rose more rapidly in the 20th century than any other century in nearly 3,000 years.

Human-induced climate change contributed to the increase, the scientists wrote in Monday’s edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The research team found sea levels rose 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) in the 20th century, and its models suggest those numbers may have been different without the effects of climate change.

Without it, the team wrote it was “very likely” that seas would have seen a change that ranged from a 3 centimeter (a little more than an inch) drop to a 7 centimeter (2.75 inch) increase.

The study’s lead author was Bob Kopp, a climate scientist from Rutgers University.

In a message on his website, Kopp wrote that he and his colleagues concluded “with 95 percent probability” that the levels rose more rapidly last century than any other century since 800 B.C.

The study’s cutoff, which stretches back 28 centuries, “is not because the rate of global sea-level rise was probably faster before then,” Kopp wrote on his website, “but simply that the reconstruction quality isn’t good enough before then to have the same level of confidence.”

NASA says the global average sea level has risen another 6 centimeters since January 2000 and is currently rising at a rate of .4 millimeters every year. The agency says the increases are “a direct result of a changing climate,” as melting ice sheets and glaciers fuel the expansion.

Kopp wrote last century wasn’t the only time when global temperatures and sea levels moved together, pointing to a 400-year stretch from the 11th to 15th centuries. Temperatures fell about .2 degrees Celsius during that stretch, while sea levels dipped approximately 8 centimeters.

But the study found it was “very likely” that global sea levels have risen “over every 40-year interval since 1860,” as societies became more industrialized.

In December, 195 countries agreed to a landmark climate change pact that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent temperatures from reaching 2 degrees Celsius above their pre-industrial averages, a long-feared threshold.

But Kopp’s team warned that even with “extremely strong emissions abatement,” their models suggest seas could rise another 24 to 61 centimeters (9 to 24 inches) during the 21st century.

If emissions were to continue at “business-as-usual” levels this century, the research team said that sea levels could potentially rise between 52 and 131 centimeters (20 to 51 inches).

‘Doomsday Clock’ countdown still at 3 minutes to midnight, closest since 1984

The countdown to global catastrophe remained at three minutes to midnight, scientists announced Tuesday, warning the planet was still perilously close to experiencing a disaster.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the hands of a metaphorical Doomsday Clock, announced the countdown would stay at the position it reached last year. It’s the closest the clock has been to midnight, or a catastrophic event, since the height of the Cold War in 1984.

The nonprofit determines the clock’s position after analyzing threats to human existence, particularly nuclear weapons and climate change. Only once have the hands ever been closer to midnight, a seven-year stretch during the 1950s following the world’s first hydrogen bomb tests.

In a statement, the Bulletin hailed the Iran nuclear deal and Paris Agreement on climate change, both of which were approved last year, as “major diplomatic achievements,” though said they “constitute only small bright spots in a darker world situation full of potential for catastrophe.”

The Bulletin said the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name for the deal that restricts Iran’s ability to develop atomic weapons, was overshadowed by rising tensions between Russia and the United States, both of whom are modernizing their nuclear arsenals, and the fact that China, Pakistan, India and North Korea are working to bolster their atomic capabilities.

The Bulletin called the Paris Agreement, a pledge signed by nearly 200 countries that aims to reduce carbon emissions and keep global temperatures from reaching long-feared levels, another important development. But the scientists noted it’s still not clear exactly how the nations will meet that goal, and the agreement was signed during the hottest year on record.

The scientists also cited ongoing conflicts in the Ukraine and Syria in their statement.

“The world situation remains highly threatening to humanity, and decisive action to reduce the danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change is urgently required,” the Bulletin said.

The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by scientists who helped builds the world’s first atomic bomb. It established the Doomsday Clock two years later, and decides where to set its hands each year.

The clock can be moved back if the global outlook improves, and moved up if it worsens.

The closest the clock has ever been to midnight was from 1953-59, when the Bulletin said the world was only two minutes from doomsday following the hydrogen bomb tests. Conversely, the clock reached a record 17 minutes to midnight from 1991-94 after the Cold War subsided.

The clock was set at five minutes to midnight in 2012, but the Bulletin adjusted it last year because of climate change and nuclear weapons. In Tuesday’s statement, the Bulletin expressed “dismay” that world leaders had still not taken more aggressive steps to address those issues.

“When we call these dangers existential, that is exactly what we mean: They threaten the very existence of civilization and therefore should be the first order of business for leaders who care about their constituents and their countries,” the Bulletin said in its statement.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons echoed those calls.

“The Bulletin’s warning should be taken seriously by world leaders,” the campaign’s executive director, Beatrice Fihn, said in a statement.“The risk of use of nuclear weapons is on the rise. If a nuclear weapon was detonated, the effects would be devastating and the international community would be unable to cope with the aftermath. The status quo is no longer an option.”

Migration, climate top World Economic Forum’s report on global risks

LONDON (Reuters) – We live in an increasingly dangerous world, with political, economic and environmental threats piling up, according to experts polled by the World Economic Forum.

Ahead of its annual meeting in Davos next week, the group’s 2016 Global Risks report on Thursday ranked the migrant crisis as the biggest single risk in terms of likelihood, while climate change was seen as having the greatest potential impact.

Around 60 million people have been displaced by conflicts from Syria to South Sudan, pushing refugee flows to record levels that are some 50 percent higher than during World War II.

Coupled with attacks such as those on Paris last year and geopolitical fault lines stretching from the Middle East to the South China Sea, the world is today arguably less politically stable than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Economic fears, particularly for Chinese growth, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events are further red flags, resulting in a greater breadth of risks than at any time in the survey’s 11-year history.

“Almost every risk is now up over the last couple of years and it paints an overall environment of unrest,” said John Drzik, head of global risk at insurance broker Marsh, who helped compile the report.

“Economic risks have come back reasonably strongly, with China, energy prices and asset bubbles all seen as significant problems in many countries.”

Last year, the threat of conflict between states topped the list of risks for the first time, after previous editions mostly highlighted economic threats.

British finance minister George Osborne, one of those heading to the Alpine ski resort set the mood last week, warning that 2016 opened “with a dangerous cocktail of new threats”.

The Jan. 20-23 Davos meeting will bring together players from geopolitical hot spots such as the foreign ministers of arch-rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as the biggest ever U.S. delegation, including Vice President Joe Biden.

North Korea’s invitation, however, has been revoked, after it conducted a nuclear test, defying a United Nations ban.

CYBER RISK A WILD CARD

The immediate problems of Middle East tensions, China’s turbulent markets and a tumbling oil price are likely to dominate corridor conversations at Davos.

But long-term concerns identified in the report center more on physical and societal trends, especially the impact of climate change and the danger of attendant water and food shortages.

While last month’s climate deal in Paris may act as a signal to investors to spend trillions of dollars to replace coal-fired power with solar panels and windmills, it is only a first step.

For businesses, the transition from fossil fuels remains uncertain, especially as political instability increases the risk of disrupted and canceled projects.

One wild card is cyber attack, which business leaders in several developed countries, including the United States, Japan and Germany, rank as a major risk to operations, although it does not make the top threat list overall.

The report analyzed 29 global risks for both likelihood and impact over a 10-year horizon by surveying nearly 750 experts and decision makers.

(Editing by Alexander Smith)

Nations Approve Landmark Climate Change Deal

A group of 195 nations has reached an unprecedented agreement on global climate change.

Delegates from the nations had spent the past two weeks at the COP21 conference in Paris, working to finalize details on a pact aimed at scaling back global greenhouse gas emissions.

On Saturday, they announced they had come to a consensus.

The conference was aimed at preventing average global temperatures from reaching 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above their counterparts during the Industrial Revolution, when greenhouse gas emissions surged. Scientists have publicly warned that eclipsing that long-feared threshold could yield catastrophic results, including massive flooding and droughts.

The nations agreed they would try to do even better and set a goal of keeping temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which provides more of a buffer.

“We have entered a new era of global cooperation on one of the most complex issues ever to confront humanity,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said in a statement. “For the first time, every country in the world has pledged to curb emissions, strengthen resilience and join in common cause to take common climate action. This is a resounding success for multilateralism.”

There’s still some work to be done before the agreement takes effect. It must be individually ratified by 55 countries that produce at least 55 percent of global carbon emissions. And there’s also work to be done before the world feels the effects of the Paris Agreement, as each nation must develop plans to cap its individual emissions as soon as possible and keep reducing them.

U.N. officials said in a news release that 188 countries have already submitted so-called climate action plans toward the Paris Agreement. Now, the countries will be required to submit new plans every five years. Those plans are required to become gradually more proactive over time, with nations working to further reduce emissions to keep temperatures below the feared levels.

But the agreement wasn’t universally hailed. Some climate change activists wanted to see a quicker transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy like wind and solar power.

“Every government seems now to recognize that the fossil fuel era must end and soon. But the power of the fossil fuel industry is reflected in the text, which drags out the transition so far that endless climate damage will be done,” Bill McKibben, the co-founder of 350.org, said in a statement. “Since pace is the crucial question now, activists must redouble our efforts to weaken that industry. This didn’t save the planet but it may have saved the chance of saving the planet.”

Threat Posed to Food Supplies in Future According to World Bank

As many as 100 million people could slide into extreme poverty because of rising temperatures, which are caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the World Bank report said. The bank’s most recent estimate puts the number of people living in extreme poverty this year at 702 million, or 9.6% of the world’s population.

The report “Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty”  shows that climate change is an acute threat to poorer people across the world, with the power to push more than 100 million people back into poverty over the next fifteen years.   It also reports that the poorest regions of the world such as the Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia will be hardest hit and could push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030 by disrupting agriculture and fueling the spread of malaria and other diseases.

Despite pledges to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases, climate change isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. Carbon emissions are expected to rise for many years as China, India and other developing countries expand the use of fossil fuels to power their economies.

The report points a way out by stressing that the world needs to take targeting action to help people cope with climate shocks, issue warning systems and flood protection and introduce heat-resistant crops.  

This year, a series of high-profile meetings took place, creating a sense of gathering cooperation around the battle against global warming. A vital step was the adoption of the global goals, which set a 2030 deadline for the eradication of poverty in all its forms and sought to galvanise action to combat climate change and its impacts at the UN general assembly in September.

New Study Finds that Persian Gulf Could Become Uninhabitable Due to Extreme Climate Change

By the end of the century, major cities along the Persian Gulf could be too hot for human survival.

On Monday a scientific study published in the journal Nature Climate Change warned that climate change could make the summer days in the Persian Gulf area too hot for “human habitability.” It would be so hot that even the healthiest of people would only be able to be outdoors for just a few hours. Cities such as Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Mecca are at risk if global warming continues at its current rate, according to the Washington Post.

“The threats to human health may be much more severe than previously thought, and may occur in the current century,” Christoph Schaer, a physicist and climate modeler at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, Switzerland, said in a commentary on the study’s conclusions.

The Washington Post reports that the authors of the study are a pair of scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Loyola Marymount University. Using high-resolution climate models of the Persian Gulf, they were able to view several different scenarios that could affect the area due to climate change over the coming decades. They focused on “wet-bulb temperature,” a key heat measurement that includes evaporation rates and humidity, averaged over several hours to determine when the Persian Gulf would be uninhabitable to humans. They determined that the high temperatures would be so high that the human body would not be able to sweat to ward off the heat.

The scientists predicted that low-lying regions of the Persian Gulf could see temperatures as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit while other cities including Kuwait City and Al Ain would see temperatures above 140 degrees Fahrenheit. In the summer months, they predict the temperatures rising to as high as 165-170 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Washington Post and Fox News.

And while some could stave off the heat with air conditioning, the impoverished areas in the Persian Gulf would see disastrous results.

“People who have resources could use air conditioning and avoid the outdoors during heat waves but, in some corners of that region, there are communities and people who don’t have resources to do that,” Elfatih Eltahir, a co-author of the study, told Fox News. “We pointed to some corners of Yemen along the Red Sea that are not as well off as other parts of the Gulf Region.”