“Human-caused global climate change is already making life considerably harder for tens of millions of people in West Asia,” said Mohammad Rahimi, a professor of climatology at Semnan University in Iran, during a news conference Tuesday, warning that the continued use of fossil fuels would make these landscapes “harsher.”
In a region where some areas have been destabilized by war, crumbling infrastructure and urbanization, climate change has “acted as a threat multiplier,” said Rana El Hajj of Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, who said the region has seen widespread desertification and deforestation in recent years.
More than 12 million people have been forced to leave their homes in Syria since 2011, according to MedGlobal estimates. Nearly 2 million people living in rural areas have been displaced by drought, the estimates suggest.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
