Iraq’s excessive temperatures a ‘wake-up name’ for world: UN
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Iraq’s rising temperatures and protracted drought are a “wake-up name” for the world, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk stated in Baghdad on Wednesday.
Turk spoke to AFP throughout a go to to Iraq, which the UN says is likely one of the 5 international locations on the earth most touched by some results of local weather change.
Iraq has been experiencing its fourth consecutive summer season of drought, and temperatures in components of the nation together with the capital Baghdad, and within the far south, have been round 50 levels Celsius (120 levels Fahrenheit).
“Rising temperatures plus the drought, and the truth that the lack of range is a actuality, is a wake-up name for Iraq and for the world,” Turk stated.
“After we look into the state of affairs of those communities we glance into our future,” he added.
“The period of worldwide boiling has come and right here we will stay it and see it every day,” Turk stated on the finish of his four-day go to, echoing feedback by UN Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres final month.
Guterres had stated, “The period of worldwide warming has ended. The period of worldwide boiling has arrived.” He referred to as for instant and daring motion, after scientists confirmed July was on observe to be the most popular month in recorded historical past.
Along with declining rainfall and rising temperatures, Iraqi authorities say upstream dam development by Turkey and Iran has affected the amount of water within the Tigris and Euphrates rivers by Iraq.
In Iraq’s far south, excessive salinity has harmed fishing within the Shatt al-Arab waterway, the place the Tigris and Euphrates converge earlier than spilling into the Gulf.
Turk, who visited the south, advised a information convention that he was proven by group leaders and others “photos of the luxurious date palm bushes that—simply 30 years in the past—lined components of the now dried-up Shatt al-Arab waterway”.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani has vowed that battling local weather change could be one in all his priorities, however activists say little has been completed.
Turk advised the information convention there had been experiences “of violence, intimidation and loss of life threats in opposition to environmental activists” in Iraq.
One in every of them, engineer Jassim al-Assadi of Nature Iraq, the nation’s main conservation group, was kidnapped for 2 weeks in February and held by armed males.
© 2023 AFP
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Iraq’s excessive temperatures a ‘wake-up name’ for world: UN (2023, August 9)
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