Jordan's efforts to adapt to climate change 'unorganised'

Hana Namrouqa in Zawya: Jordan must take its climate change adaptation measures to the national level in order to enact needed programmes estimated to cost the Kingdom billions of dollars over the next decade, experts and officials say. The fact that the Kingdom doesn't contribute to greenhouse emissions but is already falling victim to climate change has led decision makers to place adaptation to climate change as a priority, officials and experts in the field said.

Despite the introduction of programmes designed to tackle climate change, authorities have fallen short of incorporating climate change adaptation issues into national policies, particularly at the ministries of agriculture, energy and mineral resources, industry and trade, education and health, according to experts.

With climate change adaptation measures expected to cost the county billions of dollars over the upcoming decades, officials say there is a growing need for comprehensive efforts in the Kingdom, one of the hardest hit by the phenomenon in the Arab world.

In order to integrate climate change into national policies, an estimated $1.564 billion is needed for climate change adaptation and an additional $3.345 billion for mitigation by the year 2020, states the draft National Environmental and Economic Development Study for Climate Change (NEEDS) report.

According to projections in the draft report, carried out by the ministries of environment, water and irrigation, agriculture, energy and finance, the figure increases to $5 billion by the year 2050….

Desert in the south of Jordan, shot by MM, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License