| Scientific reports have long documented rising temperatures, but their impacts are now becoming increasingly visible in our everyday lives. What were once brief periods of extreme heat are now stretching into weeks and arriving earlier than usual. Meanwhile, the heat we once learned to endure is taking a growing toll on our bodies and reshaping the routines of daily life, from working and sleeping hours to water and electricity consumption, and even our ability to carry out the simplest everyday activities. |
In the Middle East and North Africa, heatwaves are no longer exceptional events. They have become a recurring reality, returning every year and seeming more intense than the last. The painful irony is that our region is among the areas hardest hit by their impacts. Since the 1980s, temperatures across the region have been rising by around 0.4°C per decade, nearly twice the global average. While that increase may seem small on paper, it has profound consequences for people and nature.
The scale of this shift was particularly evident in 2024, which was among the hottest years recorded across countries in our region. During that year’s Hajj pilgrimage, more than 1,300 pilgrims died from heat stress and heatstroke after temperatures reached 51.8°C in the shade. Just weeks later, the Moroccan city of Beni Mellal recorded 21 deaths in a single 24-hour period as a heatwave swept through the city, with temperatures ranging from 38°C to 48°C.
2025 was no different. The region continued to experience record-breaking heatwaves, as extreme heat events underwent a clear shift, becoming more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting. The danger lies not only in record-high temperatures, but also in the increasing duration of heatwaves. Longer periods of extreme heat place additional pressure on human and natural systems, reducing their ability to recover, putting greater strain on water resources and increasing the risk of drought in one of the most water-scarce regions in the world.
These conditions were further intensified by climate phenomena such as heatwaves linked to heat domes that affected the region this year, driving temperatures to exceptionally high levels across the Levant, North Africa, Egypt and the Gulf states. Temperatures in the shade reached around 49°C to 50°C in countries including Iraq, Syria and Egypt. At the same time, the extreme heat placed enormous pressure on power grids across several countries, including Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, leading to prolonged power outages that directly affected millions of people during periods of extreme heat.
Impacts That Go Beyond Rising Temperatures
However, the impacts of heatwaves go far beyond the numbers. They are not simply temporary spikes in temperature; they directly affect people’s everyday lives, making outdoor work more difficult, increasing health risks for children, older people and pregnant women, and, in the most severe cases, posing a direct threat to life. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 500,000 people died from heat-related causes each year between 2000 and 2019.
The impacts do not stop at human health. They also extend to livelihoods and essential resources. Rising temperatures put increasing pressure on water resources, make farming seasons more difficult and deepen the vulnerability of communities already facing water scarcity. With every heatwave, producing food becomes more challenging, while livelihoods and the resources people depend on come under growing pressure, particularly for farmers, pastoralists and people living in rural areas.
A Hotter Future Awaits the Region
If what we are experiencing today already feels harsh, scientific projections point to an even more concerning future. According to Greenpeace MENA’s report, “Living on the Edge”, if emissions continue to rise, leading to very high concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the summers we now consider exceptional in terms of heat are likely to become the norm in the future, and could be even harsher.
Also, the report projects that by the end of the century, around 80% of densely populated cities across the Middle East and North Africa could experience extreme heatwaves lasting for at least half of the hot season. These heatwaves could also occur up to six times more frequently and be 6°C to 7°C hotter, while the longest could last for several weeks.
According to the same Greenpeace MENA report, if high levels of emissions continue, temperatures during extreme heatwaves could exceed 56°C in parts of the Middle East and the Gulf. When such extreme heat is combined with high humidity, it is no longer simply a matter of discomfort. Conditions can reach levels that impair the human body’s ability to cool itself, increasing the risk of heat stress and other heat-related health impacts.
These changes are not limited to future projections; they are already reflected in the climate data being recorded today. The past decade was the hottest on record in Africa, according to the World Meteorological Organization. In North Africa in particular, the changes go beyond rising temperatures to the very nature of heatwaves themselves. A recent study published in “Earth Systems and Environment” found some really concerning changes in heatwave dynamics across Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, with heatwaves becoming more frequent, longer-lasting and more intense than historical climate averages. The study links these changes to the increasing persistence of high-pressure systems over the region, which trap hot air masses for longer periods and intensify heatwaves. Morocco and the North African coast are among the areas most affected by these climate shifts.
The situation becomes even more complex when extreme heat and drought occur together, a combination known as compound heatwaves. When these two factors combine, they set off a chain of impacts: water evaporates more rapidly, soils dry out, crop productivity declines and pressure on water resources intensifies. At the same time, ecosystems gradually lose their ability to withstand these stresses. Wetlands that provide habitats for rich biodiversity come under increasing pressure, vegetation cover deteriorates, and trees lose their leaves and their ability to provide shade, putting people and nature alike at risk.
Who Bears Responsibility?
When it comes to heatwaves, they are not simply an isolated natural phenomenon, but one of the clearest manifestations of climate injustice: a reality that entire communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis in the Global South are living through. There is no doubt that emissions from oil and gas companies have been the major driver of the intensification of deadly heatwaves around the world.
According to a study published in “Nature”, the combined emissions of 180 of the world’s largest carbon-producing companies were responsible for around 50% of the increase in the intensity of the heatwaves examined in the study. It also found that, on average, the heatwaves analysed were around 200 times more likely to occur between 2010 and 2019 as a result of the climate crisis driven by carbon emissions.
This is where the greatest injustice lies: while fossil fuel companies have accumulated profits for decades and contributed to deepening the climate crisis, the communities that have contributed the least to these emissions are the very ones facing its harshest consequences.
Ultimately, heatwaves are far more than a passing climate phenomenon. They are an increasingly harsh reality that makes people’s lives more difficult year after year. They threaten people’s fundamental rights to water, food, health and a life of dignity, while placing entire communities at greater risk from a crisis they did not create.
Since climate change is one of the most serious threats facing the Middle East and North Africa, and as part of our awareness project to combat and adapt to its impacts, we want to hear from you, and from citizens across the region who are witnessing the changes around them caused by global warming.
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