Lessons from the Middle East – 'the epicentre of climate discourse' – for a warming planet

The Middle East is not typically seen as a wellspring of global insights; for centuries, it has been viewed as an imperial backwater. However, in our era of climate crisis, the region offers invaluable lessons – both cautionary and inspirational – for our warming world.

Between COP27 in Egypt, the 2022 Qatar World Cup held in the world’s first air-conditioned soccer stadiums, and COP28 in the UAE, the Middle East has become the epicentre of climate discourse. But its significance runs far deeper than hosting international events. The region’s unique combination of environmental heat and fossil fuel abundance makes it a microcosm of our global climate predicament.

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It’s a place where the past and future of human adaptation to extreme heat collide, offering a preview of challenges that many parts of the world will soon face. This nexus, and the double bind between cooling needs and fossil fuel consumption, is exemplified by the air conditioner. AC units rely on electricity generated by fossil fuels to cool interiors. Thus mechanical cooling is the other side of the global warming coin – a vicious cycle par excellence. 

Climate scientists dread such biophysical feedback loops that could accelerate climate change and push the Earth’s system past critical tipping points. But if climate change is anthropogenic or human-caused, what about the social and political dynamics propelling it?

Again, consider AC: when it was introduced into the Arabian Peninsula during the 1930s, it was used by oil companies to entice American engineers unaccustomed to the region’s heat. Prefabricated and mechanically cooled villas and swimming pools gradually drove a social mobility pattern wherein local Arabs recalibrated their aspirations and visions for a good life, imitating their western colleagues, with electricity handsomely subsidised by local governments flush with petrodollars. 

Now the region’s population has grown accustomed to temperatures around 16°C – far colder than what most Europeans would consider comfortable. Air conditioning makes it possible for workers to extract the very fossil fuels that power the air conditioners, that cool and simultaneously heat the world, changing people’s comfort levels and aspirations in the process. It’s a closed loop of destruction symptomatising the global hydrocarbon economy that’s pushing us towards climate breakdown.

Indeed, sometimes solutions can be part of the problem: if current trends of air conditioning persist, by the end of the century 0.5°C of global heating will be attributable to mechanical cooling alone. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now defines this as maladaptation, which establishes paths that limit the choices of future generations to adapt.

But the Middle East’s climate story isn’t just a catalogue of missteps. The region has a rich heritage of climate adaptation, with ingenious cooling techniques developed over millennia. Pre-modern homes were designed with sophisticated wind towers, deep cellars and carefully planned air circulation. Women observed street life through intricate wooden mashrabiyas, latticed screens that shielded interiors from sun while providing evaporative cooling. The qaylula, or midday siesta, offered respite from summer’s heat, with work schedules designed to accommodate it.

Architectural and cultural practices were complemented by attention to the human body’s cooling mechanisms. Loose cotton garments, spicy foods and hot beverages like mint tea or strong coffee were used to stimulate beneficial perspiration. Surprisingly, before the mid-20th century, sweat was valorised. It was considered an erotic substance and even ascribed with devotional values. As night fell, families sought relief by sleeping on cool rooftops, exemplifying a harmonious relationship between architecture, culture and climate. 

This heritage was systematically dismantled by the rapid march of modern technologies that swept the region during the 20th and 21st centuries. Once-shaded alleys gave way to broad thoroughfares of heat trapping concrete and asphalt. Homes – and hence families – became isolated and atomised, climate controlled bubbles, abandoning passive cooling for fossil-fuelled air conditioning. 

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Modern life also distanced people from their bodies’ natural thermoregulation. Perspiration became something to be masked with deodorants and synthetic fabrics. Cold sodas replaced hot beverages, symbolising a shift from working with the climate to combating it. The consequences of these changes are stark. Contemporary Middle Eastern cities now swelter several degrees hotter than in previous generations, a testament to the unintended consequences of abandoning time-tested, climate-adaptive practices. However, even by examining how the Middle East’s rich heritage of climate adaptation was compromised, we can learn valuable lessons for living in a warming world. For instance, we can reconsider discarded schemes of urban design, attitudes towards the body, approaches to diet, labour and community. 

In our quest for progress, we’ve often overlooked the costs of abandoning traditional wisdom. Concepts like that of qaylula (siesta), for example, are not simply about avoiding the hottest part of the day – rather, they disclose different ways of structuring work and a life that’s less energy-intensive and more in tune with natural rhythms.

We need and should not romanticise the past or reject technology wholesale. Yet we may recognise that in our headlong rush into the future, we’ve left behind still-applicable knowledge. What if we restructured our work and lives around the rhythms of nature, instead of trying to impose our 24/7, always-on mentality on the world? 

The Middle East’s recent history also stands as a stark cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked, rapid modernisation. Qatar’s stadiums, hailed as cutting-edge examples of outdoor cooling, epitomise this dilemma. Their air-conditioning vents, often concealed behind mashrabiya-like facades, blend environmental rhetoric with Islamic aesthetics, creating a double-layered greenwashing that obscures the true cost: the lives of thousands of migrant workers lost to heatstroke.

When viewed alongside the longer history of air conditioning in the region, this underscores how short-term fixes often pave the way for deeper, long-term consequences. As climate change intensifies, many settings will face heat challenges similar to those the Middle East has already grappled with. In the region’s struggle to reconcile its past wisdom with its present challenges, we may find a roadmap for navigating our shared climate future.

On Barak is a social and cultural historian of science and technology.

His book Heat, a History is out now (University of California Press, £25). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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