ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Water scarcity is the most prominent climate challenge facing Iraq at the moment, said the country’s President Abdul Latif Rashid on Monday, adding that Baghdad hopes for greater cooperation with neighboring countries Turkey and Iran to resolve that issue.
Rashid participated in the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP27), the United Nations’ annual climate summit, in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh, and delivered a speech addressing the most alarming climate challenges in Iraq and efforts made to curb their impact on the country’s future.
“In this regard, the most prominent challenge that we face in Iraq is the water problem, and this may be really surprising if we think that Mesopotamia is facing water scarcity after long periods in which floods were a major problem for the population, agriculture, and life,” Rashid said during his speech on Monday.
He added that drought and lack of rain in recent years have imposed “dangerous challenges” on Iraq’s agricultural and livestock wealth, and continue to present a serious threat to people’s livelihood and the economy of the country.
Water levels in the Euphrates and Tigris rivers - shared by Iraq, Syria, and Turkey - have dropped considerably in recent years. In the latest stark warning of the threats a heating climate poses to the country, a report by Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources towards the end of last year predicted that unless urgent action is taken to combat declining water levels, Iraq’s two main rivers will be entirely dry by 2040.
Baghdad’s water authorities have worked with Ankara and Tehran to gain “a fair share” of the Euphrates and Tigris’ water, according to Rashid, expressing hope for greater cooperation with the two countries on that front.
The President addressed Iraq’s susceptibility to the effects of climate change, stressing the necessity of “developing a fair and helpful international support,” to assist the country in this regard.
“Our keenness for a clean environment is one of our responsibilities towards our future generations.”
Iraq is the fifth-most vulnerable nation in the world to the effects of climate change, including water and food insecurity, according to the UN.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has long warned that the water available in Iraq is set to decrease by around 20 percent by 2025, threatening the long-term stability of Iraq’s agriculture and industry.
The issue is exacerbated by the Turkish and Iranian damming of rivers that flow into Iraq, cutting off the increasingly dry nation from much-needed water relief. Ankara has built a mega-dam on the Tigris River.
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