On the eve of the celebrations, posing such a question might have seemed churlish. But now the party’s over and it’s time for the UAE to look at the considerable challenges it faces over the next half-century.
As things stand, Fitch Ratings is a fan of the UAE. In November it affirmed its all-important long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) for the country at “AA-” – a resounding vote of confidence in the UAE as “a very low default risk” for international lenders.
Less reassuring, however, and reflecting the stark realities looming for the UAE, was the report “Climate Change Physical Risks Are a Growing Threat to Sovereigns,” published by Fitch just four days before its glowing ratings reappraisal.
The report features a table of the 15 countries assessed to be most at risk from the effects of extreme temperature and drought threatened by climate change – and the UAE is in the number-one slot.
What this could mean has been spelled out in a series of climate-change studies over the past five years, all of which have reached the same disturbing conclusion.
In Abu Dhabi and Dubai, “the combined effect of high temperature and humidity is projected to reach or even exceed the thresholds for human adaptability.”
In other words, having risen from the desert in just 50 years, in another half-century the wonder of the modern world that is the UAE might, in the face of a worst-case climate scenario, have to be abandoned to the sands from whence it emerged.
Of course, the UAE is not sleepwalking into disaster. It is very well aware that it needs to replace its dependency upon fossil fuels with expertise in renewables and other technologies that will allow it to remain an essential go-to energy partner.
But the UAE is caught in a bind. All the alternative development and evolution away from fossil-fuel dependence costs money and, for now, the bulk of that money comes from the same oil and gas reserves that have brought the UAE so far in such a short time – and which have brought the world to the edge of disaster.
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