Climate change has become a “serious” issue in Kuwait given the bursts of heavy rain that soaked the Gulf state recently, said a Kuwaiti official on Wednesday. The international community is working to meet the objectives of a landmark 2015 global deal to tackle climate change, the director general of Kuwait’s Environment Public Authority (EPA) Sheikh Abdullah Al-Humoud Al-Sabah said.
Amid a ceremony to promulgate Kuwait’s rulebook for implementing the Paris climate agreement, he said the environmental body is currently studying the new rules agreed upon by nearly 200 countries during talks in Poland last month. The ill effects of climate change have begun to spill over into Kuwait, he explained, citing rising sea levels and record precipitation as factors that could impede future development projects.
Kuwait has coped well with the effects of climate change, according to the UN Environment’s West Asia Office development coordinator Dr. Abdulmonem Mohammad, saying necessary measures should be taken to keep climate change in check. The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to limit a rise in average world temperatures to “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.
