A climate activist lays on an inflatable world globe in front of the Swiss House of Parliament at the start of a week of demonstrations called "Rise up for change" on September 21, in Bern. Fabrice Coffrini / AFP
A climate activist lays on an inflatable world globe in front of the Swiss House of Parliament at the start of a week of demonstrations called "Rise up for change" on September 21, in Bern. Fabrice Coffrini / AFP
A climate activist lays on an inflatable world globe in front of the Swiss House of Parliament at the start of a week of demonstrations called "Rise up for change" on September 21, in Bern. Fabrice Co
This is officially Climate Week and it's brought to the world by the United Nations and New York City, on the sidelines of the ongoing, virtual 75th UN General Assembly. Unofficially, climate week now runs throughout the year in some form or other, somewhere – an extreme weather event, a call to action, or a heated argument about whether global warming is a fact.
But this Climate Week is arguably different. A firestorm is sweeping the usual debates about climate change, as the US presidential campaign, America in general and the world as a whole is confronted with new visions of apocalypse – on the TV news and on the internet. America’s west coast is burning.
So is Siberia, as far north as the Arctic Circle. And so are Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, one of the most bio-diverse areas in the world. In July, forest fires caused an Indonesian province on Borneo island to declare a state of emergency. Earlier this year, enormous tracts of the Australian continent were ablaze.
Each seems like the local chapter of an increasingly familiar global story, one in which large parts of the world are on fire. And in 2020, which is expected to be among the five warmest years on record, each raging fire appears to show that the planet is getting hotter, drier and more inhospitable.
Consider California’s customary fire season. It has become the state’s most destructive in modern memory and it is still only halfway done. Six of the state’s 10 largest wildfires have happened since 2018 and five were just this year. Millions of acres have burned, with the fires spreading into neighbouring Oregon and Washington, wreaking destruction on businesses and homes and leaving landscapes akin to Hawaii’s famous black sand beaches, except that these are charred and smoking. Even though the world’s most polluted cities are typically in Asia, in the past week, Portland, Oregon had significantly worse air quality than any other city in the world.
Smoke over neighbourhoods in Monrovia, California, September 13. California wildfires that have already incinerated a record 2.3 million acres this year and are expected to continue till December. David McNew/Getty Images/AFP
David McNew/Getty Images/AFP
The fires pumped an estimated 110 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the smoke blew all the way from the west to cities on America’s east coast, creating hazy conditions and weirdly orange skies in Washington, DC and New York. According to satellite data from the European Union’s Copernicus atmospheric monitoring services, the smoke travelled as far as northern Europe. Meanwhile, the towering fires forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. With the Red Cross on the ground and struggling to find shelter for more displaced people than there were hotel rooms, the volunteers were often heard using a word that might seem odd in the richest country in the world. “Refugees”, they called the Americans displaced by the historic blaze.
Refugees is the right word but it has entered public consciousness way too late. Back in 2015, then US secretary of state John Kerry was warning a foreign ministers’ conference in Alaska to prepare for “climate refugees”.
It will keep getting worse, as long as we keep adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere
That was the year an estimated two million people fleeing the Syrian civil war would pour into Europe. But that migration, according to a 2015 paper in the ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’, an American journal, was initially from the hinterland into Syrian cities.
Syrians in rural areas were desperate after “the worst three-year drought in the instrumental record”, the researchers wrote, identifying “a long-term drying trend” as well as a “warming trend in the Eastern Mediterranean (caused by the increase in greenhouse gases)”.
Decades of state-decreed, water-intensive agricultural practices had led to the unsustainable depletion of groundwater and the drying of the Khabur river in north-eastern Syria. Crops failed and the farmers moved to the cities.
As with all migration, this triggered tensions and eventually, massive unrest. So, when Mr Kerry declared that “we as leaders of countries will begin to witness what we call climate refugees”, he was using the wrong tense. The world was already witnessing climate refugees. The phenomenon was not in the future.
In any case, Mr Kerry was five years late in drawing attention to the issue of climate refugees. In 2010, Frank Bierman, an environmental policy professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, led controversial research that warned there may be as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050. He recommended the creation of an international resettlement fund. An ambitious but poorly funded nest egg of sorts was subsequently set up by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
But it was only in 2018 that the UN negotiated a global migration treaty that became the first to recognise climate as a cause of future displacement. The US refused to join 164 other countries in signing it.
The myopia of America, led by US President Donald Trump, is both outrageous and tragic as its burning west coast is creating climate refugees, albeit those seeking haven within their country’s borders.
Last year was the first time in a decade that more people left California for other US states than arrived. And however high the walls that America builds to keep foreign climate refugees out, there will continue to be an inexorable flow from water-stressed, hungry parts of central America towards the vast, rich country next door.
New projections for global climate-induced migration range from 50 million to 300 million in the next few decades. It is telling that Philip Duffy, head of the Woodwell Climate Research Centre in Massachusetts, recently rejected the idea that raging fires, melting Arctic sea ice, simultaneous hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and the hottest summer in the northern hemisphere could be described as “the new normal”. It is not, he said, because “it will keep getting worse, as long as we keep adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere”.
A giant inflatable model of the Earth during European Sustainable Development Week, as well on World Clean Up day, at the garden of Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague, Czech Republic, September 19. Martin Divisek / EPA
So climate week seems doomed to stretch into decades. Sometimes, it is novelists who tell the future. Margaret Atwood ended her acclaimed ‘MaddAddam’ trilogy about a dystopian post-pandemic world on fire as follows: “The people in the chaos cannot learn. They cannot understand what they are doing to the sea and the sky and the plants and the animals. They cannot understand that they are killing them, and that they will end by killing themselves.”
Fiction is becoming fact before our eyes.
Rashmee Roshan Lall is a columnist for The National
What vitamins do we know are beneficial for living in the UAE
Vitamin D: Highly relevant in the UAE due to limited sun exposure; supports bone health, immunity and mood. Vitamin B12: Important for nerve health and energy production, especially for vegetarians, vegans and individuals with absorption issues. Iron: Useful only when deficiency or anaemia is confirmed; helps reduce fatigue and support immunity. Omega-3 (EPA/DHA): Supports heart health and reduces inflammation, especially for those who consume little fish.
Kopa Trophy (Best player under 21 – Men’s) Lamine Yamal (Barcelona / Spain)
Best Young Women’s Player Vicky López (Barcelona / Spain)
Yashin Trophy (Best Goalkeeper – Men’s) Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City / Italy)
Best Women’s Goalkeeper Hannah Hampton (England / Aston Villa and Chelsea)
Men’s Coach of the Year Luis Enrique (Paris Saint-Germain)
Women’s Coach of the Year Sarina Wiegman (England)
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 201hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 320Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km
Price: Dh133,900
On sale: now
AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
£10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
£100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
£250m to train new AI models
Terror attacks in Paris, November 13, 2015
- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany - At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people - Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed - Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest - He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Surianah's top five jazz artists
Billie Holliday: for the burn and also the way she told stories.
Thelonius Monk: for his earnestness.
Duke Ellington: for his edge and spirituality.
Louis Armstrong: his legacy is undeniable. He is considered as one of the most revolutionary and influential musicians.
Terence Blanchard: very political - a lot of jazz musicians are making protest music right now.
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 640hp
Torque: 760nm
On sale: 2026
Price: Not announced yet
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors
Power: Combined output 920hp
Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
Bharatanatyam
A ancient classical dance from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Intricate footwork and expressions are used to denote spiritual stories and ideas.
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
