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CLIMATE CHANGE Qatar ‘Go on Charlotte!’ shouts a British voice. I spin around to spot a woman in Great Britain kit stood with what I assume are her parents. It turns out she is a runner herself and the roommate of Charlotte Purdue, Great Britain’s entrant in the marathon. We get chatting while we wait for the athletes to come back round. I have just started to explain what there is to do in Doha when we are interrupted by a golf buggy zipping past with a stretcher on it. ‘Oh dear,’ says the mum. ‘Was someone on there?’ ‘Yes,’ she says glumly. We stop talking to cheer as the athletes come down the stretch on the far side of us. There is the group of three or four at the front. The athlete and her parents start to mull over where Charlotte is. ‘She was about 14th I think…’ ‘After that woman…’ They wait and scan the road. After 20 minutes, the field is already strung out. The athletes at the front look languid and relaxed in their movements. But quickly, once you get to tenth position and lower, you can see just how much they are all struggling. Heads are lolling, running gaits are tightened. A golf buggy zips past again. In it sit three runners. Charlotte never turns up. With the clock past 1am, the athlete and her parents decide to call it a night. I catch a yawn and decide to watch the finish from the comfort of my flat. On television, the course looks more deserted than it did when I was trackside – moon-like in its abandonment and weirdness. The shouts of the crowd and the purr of the TV bike filming the runners echo off the asphalt. The camera focuses on a Bulgarian athlete who is walking. It turns out that of the 68 runners who started, 28 have had to withdraw – a 40 per cent dropout rate. Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya ended up winning the race, but her victory was never going to be the story. ‘The Doha World Championships descended into carnage in the early hours of Saturday morning,’ wrote the next day’s Daily Te l e g raph. ‘Close to half the women’s marathon field failing to finish as sweltering conditions caused shocking scenes of multiple athletes collapsing in distress,’ the article stated. Purdue, who dropped out after less than an hour, called the event a ‘shitshow’. In the end, what stole the show was not feats of human excellence but the weather. HEAT AND HUMIDITY Qatar is heating faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, the SVEN HANSCHE/SHUTTERSTOCK Research predicts that, by 2070, the Gulf will experience heatwaves beyond the limits of human tolerance consequence of being a peninsula surrounded by overheating seas in one of the hottest corners of the world. Average temperatures have already risen more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Qatar is one of the driest countries on the planet. Rainfall in some years can be as little as two centimetres. The country has no lakes or rivers. It has to desalinate most of its drinking water, which in turn requires an enormous amount of energy. ‘We started hearing stories that it’s getting hotter and hotter every year,’ one Qatari studying energy and the environment told me, a worried look on his face. ‘I remember when we were kids we’d go fishing. And now we’d have to drive out [in our boats] another 20 extra minutes to get the fish we used to get on the coast.’ Recent scientific research predicts that, by 2070, the Gulf will experience heatwaves beyond the limits of human tolerance. It isn’t the pure heat as much as its combination with extreme humidity that has people worried. ‘When there is abundant humidity in the air, our body’s ability to regulate our temperature and cool down through sweating is impeded,’ I was told by Dr Georgios Zittis, an expert on climate change in the Middle East at the Cyprus Institute, a research centre. ‘We breathe more rapidly as we get increasingly hotter. Our heart pumps 52 . GEOGRAPHICAL
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The Bay of Doha in Qatar. The overwhelming majority (2.4m) of the country’s overall population (2.8m) reside in the capital more blood to our extremities, and less to our internal organs and brain. If not hydrated, our body overheats and cannot maintain temperature. In such cases, heat exhaustion or heat stroke may be fatal.’ The marathon runners at the World Championships had frequent refreshment options and doctors on hand. Most workers toiling in the heat in Qatar do not. In May 2021, the Qatar government trumpeted its extension of a moratorium on working hours during summer. Along with other mitigation measures, the new law stated that, from 1 June to 15 September, no-one would be able to work outside between 10am and 3.30pm. But the IAAF marathon race, which took place on 27 September 2019, showed that even outside of that window, and in the middle of the night, conditions are detrimental to human exertion. ‘The humidity kills you,’ said one of the competitors who did manage to finish. She perhaps didn’t realise that this has literally been happening in Qatar. Qatar is not just vulnerable to temperature increases. Its topography – a flat peninsula with huge developments on reclaimed land – makes it one of the Arab countries most at risk from sealevel rise. According to the academic Mari Luomi, the physical damage and economic disruption caused by a oneto-three-metre rise would knock up to five per cent off GDP. If the increase is more than five metres above preindustrial levels, more than 18 per cent of Qatar’s land would be permanently reclaimed by the ocean. Air quality, too, is a problem. The Gulf is already a dusty place, courtesy of the sand. Add to that the growing traffic and industry fumes, increasing soil erosion and the detritus kicked up by non-stop construction and the result is increasingly poor air quality. One Qatari told me anecdotally that there was a period when there was no antihistamine medication in Doha – there had been a run on pharmacies as people suffered respiratory issues caused by the pollution. Qatar has been slow to mitigate the effects of climate change, despite being on course to be threatened more than most. Sitting on one of the world’s biggest reservoirs of gas, Doha has little incentive for promoting renewable energy, given that the world’s gas dependency keeps its economy afloat. One young Qatari working in the sustainability sector recalled a testy exchange he had with a government energy official during the 2000s. ‘Why are you shedding light on renewables?’ he was asked by the representative. ‘You’re accelerating our demise.’ In 2018, the World Bank labelled Qatar the largest per-capita emitter of CO2 on the planet. Many in Qatar take umbrage with this distinction, pointing out that included in the sums are the vast quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exported to countries around the world. Would it not, they ask, make more sense to pin the emissions on the nations using it? Yet withdraw those emissions and Qatar still produces plenty of greenhouse gases. According to consumption-based calculators, in 2020, the country came 38th globally. Part of the problem is that Qatar doesn’t charge locals for electricity or water – one of the perks it offers citizens (migrants have to pay). As a result, the consumption of both utilities is at enormous levels. Gulf households make those in the USA look like Scandinavians in terms of energy use. A shocking 70 per cent of total electricity use in the Gulf goes on air conditioning (compared to around 15 per cent in the USA and ten per cent in China and India). Government building regulations are weak, resulting in many houses and offices that are energy inefficient. West Bay is littered with skyscrapers sheathed in glass facing the sun all day that are impossible to make habitable without prodigious amounts of air conditioning. To maintain the semblance of ordinary life through the summer months, many businesses air condition the outdoors. Cafés and restaurants deploy industrialsized units to keep al fresco diners cool. Qatar’s current approach to climate change fits an all-too-familiar pattern. Doha talks a good talk: it hosted the COP18 climate talks, it claims to be organising the first carbon-neutral FIFA World Cup, and at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, the emir pledged US$100 million to support small island states and ‘the least developed states’ to mitigate climate change. The nation also does a good line in expensive, JULY 2022 . 53

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The Bay of Doha in Qatar. The overwhelming majority

(2.4m) of the country’s overall population (2.8m)

reside in the capital more blood to our extremities, and less to our internal organs and brain. If not hydrated, our body overheats and cannot maintain temperature. In such cases, heat exhaustion or heat stroke may be fatal.’ The marathon runners at the World Championships had frequent refreshment options and doctors on hand. Most workers toiling in the heat in Qatar do not.

In May 2021, the Qatar government trumpeted its extension of a moratorium on working hours during summer. Along with other mitigation measures, the new law stated that, from 1 June to 15 September, no-one would be able to work outside between 10am and 3.30pm. But the IAAF marathon race, which took place on 27 September 2019, showed that even outside of that window, and in the middle of the night, conditions are detrimental to human exertion. ‘The humidity kills you,’ said one of the competitors who did manage to finish. She perhaps didn’t realise that this has literally been happening in Qatar.

Qatar is not just vulnerable to temperature increases. Its topography – a flat peninsula with huge developments on reclaimed land – makes it one of the Arab countries most at risk from sealevel rise. According to the academic Mari Luomi, the physical damage and economic disruption caused by a oneto-three-metre rise would knock up to five per cent off GDP. If the increase is more than five metres above preindustrial levels, more than 18 per cent of Qatar’s land would be permanently reclaimed by the ocean.

Air quality, too, is a problem. The Gulf is already a dusty place, courtesy of the sand. Add to that the growing traffic and industry fumes, increasing soil erosion and the detritus kicked up by non-stop construction and the result is increasingly poor air quality. One Qatari told me anecdotally that there was a period when there was no antihistamine medication in Doha – there had been a run on pharmacies as people suffered respiratory issues caused by the pollution.

Qatar has been slow to mitigate the effects of climate change, despite being on course to be threatened more than most. Sitting on one of the world’s biggest reservoirs of gas, Doha has little incentive for promoting renewable energy, given that the world’s gas dependency keeps its economy afloat. One young Qatari working in the sustainability sector recalled a testy exchange he had with a government energy official during the 2000s. ‘Why are you shedding light on renewables?’ he was asked by the representative. ‘You’re accelerating our demise.’

In 2018, the World Bank labelled Qatar the largest per-capita emitter of CO2 on the planet. Many in Qatar take umbrage with this distinction, pointing out that included in the sums are the vast quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exported to countries around the world. Would it not, they ask, make more sense to pin the emissions on the nations using it? Yet withdraw those emissions and Qatar still produces plenty of greenhouse gases. According to consumption-based calculators, in 2020, the country came 38th globally. Part of the problem is that Qatar doesn’t charge locals for electricity or water – one of the perks it offers citizens (migrants have to pay). As a result, the consumption of both utilities is at enormous levels. Gulf households make those in the USA look like Scandinavians in terms of energy use. A shocking 70 per cent of total electricity use in the Gulf goes on air conditioning (compared to around 15 per cent in the USA and ten per cent in China and India).

Government building regulations are weak, resulting in many houses and offices that are energy inefficient. West Bay is littered with skyscrapers sheathed in glass facing the sun all day that are impossible to make habitable without prodigious amounts of air conditioning. To maintain the semblance of ordinary life through the summer months, many businesses air condition the outdoors. Cafés and restaurants deploy industrialsized units to keep al fresco diners cool.

Qatar’s current approach to climate change fits an all-too-familiar pattern. Doha talks a good talk: it hosted the COP18 climate talks, it claims to be organising the first carbon-neutral FIFA World Cup, and at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, the emir pledged US$100 million to support small island states and ‘the least developed states’ to mitigate climate change. The nation also does a good line in expensive,

JULY 2022 . 53

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