Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Around two-thirds of the population in the Middle East and North Africa lives in urban settlements and the region’s population is projected to double by 2050, exposing a growing number of people to intensifying natural and climate hazards. As a result, cities will need to take additional steps to boost climate resilience and advance decarbonization efforts, including through climate-informed urban planning measures like compact, transit-oriented development, urban greening initiatives, and a focus on green buildings. With this in mind, regional governments have recently adopted the concept of “smart cities,” aiming to utilize technology and sustainable practices to address the challenges of urbanization and climate change.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
From extreme heat and drought to dust storms and rising sea levels, the Kingdom of Bahrain is facing the growing impact of climate change, with projections indicating conditions will only get worse in the future. Manama’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change directly intersects with its broader societal and governance issues, necessitating comprehensive climate-resilience strategies to address these interconnected challenges.
Intense flooding across the Arabian Peninsula caused by a storm in mid-April sparked speculation about the role cloud seeding might have played in the precipitation event, giving rise to conspiracy theories on social media and warnings trumpeting the hazards of human intervention into natural processes. Cloud seeding is not the only climate change-adaptive strategy to have been targeted in this way, and the effort being expended to combat such disinformation (though nascent) is growing.
Expert regional analysis by MEI scholars and contributors.
Storm Daniel struck Libya on Sept. 10, 2023. The northeastern coast of the country was the hardest hit by the storm, especially the city of Derna. The storm generated strong winds and heavy rains that led to massive flooding throughout the city, washing away entire residential neighborhoods. The death toll from the floods was staggering, estimated in the thousands.
The Biden administration has presented Netanyahu a plan that could potentially defeat Hamas and cinch Saudi normalization with Israel. But Washington is growing impatient with the prime minister’s inaction which threatens to undermine America’s credibility in the region — and Israel’s very future.
This week’s visit by Jake Sullivan, U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, came at a turbulent. uncertain time both inside Israel’s domestic politics and U.S.-Israel Relations.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
Read MEI’s weekly briefing featuring expert analysis of key regional developments for the week ahead.
The month of April saw a series of unprecedented escalations in the long-simmering Iranian-Israeli conflict, with both countries launching missile and drone attacks against the other’s territory for the first time in history.
In the wake of these strikes, what will be the impact on the regional security and political environment going forward, what is needed to stabilize the new rules of the game, and how can US diplomacy help to facilitate that process? MEI has asked its experts to weigh in.