Increasing global warming temperatures and the consequent carbon emissions around the globe has made UAE highly susceptible to climate change.

A recent report released in the UAE predicts that a two per cent temperature increase combined with a 10 per cent rise in humidity by 2050 will exact a heavy toll on at least a dozen sectors across the country.

According to the Emirates Wildlife Society and World Wildlife Fund (EWS-WWF) report titled ?UAE Climate Change: Risks and Resilience, the country is vulnerable to climate change which poses risks to the country's economy, business, and society.

The report's release comes months after the UAE ratified its commitment to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to reduce the UAE?s fossil-fuel based electricity production over time starting with a 27 per cent renewable energy mix by 2021.

As per the report the hike in temperature in UAE will lead to increase in energy demand-supply gap over time, hamper energy security, increase costs to end users and produce additional greenhouse gas emissions as air conditioning demand will increase.

Another concern for UAE is food security that will affect the reliability on international food markets as 87 percent of the UAE's food supply is dependent on agricultural production outside the country, and thus prone to climate change impacts all over the world. Consequently, large share of the budgets of lower-income households will be spent on food as they will be more prone to price increase in food commodities.

The report confirms that unconstrained carbon emissions have wide-reaching consequences, risking nearly every sector of economy, business and society. EWS-WWF's report elaborates on how changes in air and sea temperatures will lead to a multiplicity of secondary impacts in various sectors of the economy.

The report encourages all private sector champions, public sector policymakers and civil society leaders to share the responsibility, and play a part in developing and implementing adaptation strategies to boost resiliency and safeguard the economy, society and environment otherwise the effort of UAE towards achieving economic diversification and the overall well being of the population will slow down.

Credit- EWS-WWF, Gulf News