Kuwait is ranked each year as among the hottest places on the planet
A woman feeds stray cats at the marina in Kuwait City, Feb. 11, 2022. Last summer, birds dropped dead from the sky and shellfish baked to death in the bay. Yet Kuwait stayed silent as the rest of the region’s wealthy petrostates joined a chorus of nations setting climate goals ahead of last fall’s U.N. climate summit in Glasgow. Sea horses boiled to death in the bay. Dead clams coated the rocks, their shells popped open like they’d been steamed.
And yet, Kuwait remains among the world’s top oil producers and exporters, and per capita is a significant polluter. Mired in political paralysis, it stayed silent as the region’s petrostates joined a chorus of nations setting goals to eliminate emissions at home — though not curb oil exports — ahead of last fall’s U.N. climate summit in Glasgow.“We are severely under threat,” said environmental consultant Samia Alduaij."The response is so timid it doesn’t make sense.
“The government has the money, the information and the manpower to make a difference,” said lawmaker Hamad al-Matar, director of the parliamentary environmental committee. “It doesn’t care about environmental issues.” At first, the Shagaya Energy Park exceeded expectations, engineers said. The Persian Gulf's first plant to combine three different renewables — solar, wind and solar thermal — put Kuwait at the vanguard. The wind farm over-performed, generating 20% more power in the first year than anticipated, the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research reported.
Disputes also have marred the natural gas industry. While natural gas causes sizable emissions of climate-warming gases, it burns more cleanly than coal and oil and could play a big role in a low-carbon future for Kuwait. When ministers suggest the government stop spending so much on subsidies, lawmakers put up a fight — literally. Debates in the chamber can devolve into fisticuffs.