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UAE urged to curb greenhouse gases

DUBAI —The carbon dioxide emissions in the UAE are not high as in the developed countries, but the country needs to keep a check on greenhouse gases as it is developing at a fast pace. This was stated by a Shaikh Fakhar Khalid, senior lecturer in Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing at the University of Greenwich, UK.

“The statistics, which I have seen, indicates that UAE does not have high carbon dioxide emissions like in some developed countries. However, people must take care of it now as the UAE is developing very fast,” he said.

Khalid suggested that people should utilise resources like water economically as it was not available in abundance here. “People should conserve water, rather than wasting it,” he stressed.

Khalid, who was addressing environmentalists and students from various public schools in the UAE at the eighth community lecture of Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), “Monitoring the Realities of Climate Change,” noted that there have been regular cycles of climate change globally.

Recalling the Mayan civilisation, he said, “The civilisation had been wiped out because of drought caused by climate change. In 1816, Europe experienced an entire year without summer. So, weather anomalies have been happening all along. There have been several ice ages in the past, not just one.”

Khalid cautioned that while this phenomenon was normal, it is the speed at which it is happening that is cause for alarm. “What we should be worried is the speed at which the changes are happening. Over the past 40 years, the weather changes have been rapid and there has been a sharp change in temperatures,” he added.

Carbon dioxide, methane and ozone hold most of the heat molecules causing enhanced greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, he said, adding that human activities were significantly increasing the concentrations of some gases in the atmosphere.

Speaking at the lecture, EEG Chairperson Habiba Al Marashi noted that the industrialised nations, representing less than 20 per cent of the world’s population accounted for nearly 90 per cent of the annual greenhouse gases emissions over the last century, largely through burning of fossil fuels.

“There should be safety nets and adaptation measures placed by this time for the vulnerable communities. We call upon the big polluters to act now in terms of programmes and policies to curb emissions,” Al Marashi said.