by Mouna Hashem and Martha Mundy
It is no joke; the man who will preside over the upcoming climate summit, COP28 (which will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), from November 30 to December 12), is the chief oil executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the third largest oil company in the Arabian Peninsula: Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who also is the United Arab Emirates Minister for Industry and Advanced Technology.
Organizations and lawmakers, including a group of 133 U. S. senators and European Union lawmakers concerned about environmental damage, climate updating, and human rights advocates, have denounced the clash of interests inherent in an oil corporation chief presiding over the wonderful foreign climate update. to fossil fuel emissions. Meanwhile, in 2022, ADNOC announced plans for new drilling that, if completed, would constitute the second-largest expansion of oil and fuel production in the world.
The Socotra Archipelago
The Socotra archipelago in the Republic of Yemen is made up of 4 islands (Socotra, Abd al-Kuri, Darsa and Samha) and two rocky islets. Located two hundred miles off the mainland coast of Yemen, it occupies a strategic position in the Arabian Sea. , in the northwestern part of the Indian Ocean and east of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the two bodies of water that link the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. South Asia and the Far East. It is a very important maritime address. That makes the industry between East and West economically viable. An estimated 20,000 shipping vessels pass through Socotra each year, consuming 9% of the world’s oil supply.
Socotra Island, the largest island, represents around 95 percent of the landmass of the Socotra archipelago. Thirty-seven percent of its 825 plants are native to the island. Socotra also hosts more than 190 bird species, and 90 percent of its reptile species are endemic to the archipelago. Ninety-five percent of its land snail species are only found on the archipelago. Its diverse marine life includes 253 reef-building corals and 730 coastal fish species. The human inhabitants of the archipelago, dwelling mainly on the Socotra and Abdul al-Kuri islands, lead a simple way of life, depending primarily on herding or fishing for their livelihoods.
All the spaces that make up Socotra obtain advantages of legal environmental coverage through UNESCO. It is identified as one of the five islands with the highest biodiversity in the world, with Outstanding Universal Value for its exclusive flora and fauna. In 2008, Socotra was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. World Heritage Site.
Illegal profession and overexploitation
In 2015, two cyclones struck Socotra, causing severe human, environmental, and infrastructural damage, and signaling the archipelago’s vulnerability to climate change. The UAE sent humanitarian aid to Socotra, repaired schools, hospitals, housing, roads, and water systems, and set up health centers.
The World Heritage Committee (WHC) expressed fears about the damage caused by the cyclones and the maintenance that needed to be carried out and called on the Yemen Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to ensure that maintenance complies with the World Heritage Operational Guidelines, i. e. that the road network is not expanded and that the recovery of the damaged port is limited to its previous state.
Initially, the other inhabitants of Socotra appreciated the help of the United Arab Emirates. Gradually, however, they began to realize that the United Arab Emirates, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition’s war against Yemen, was expanding its military presence in Socotra. Officials from the United Arab Emirates began stopping on the island frequently. Military planes arrived with tanks, armored vehicles and troops, Socotra was not involved in the war.
The UAE also expanded the island’s airport in the capital, Hadibo, built military bases and camps, and installed several telecommunications towers and two signals intelligence systems (SIGINT). These activities violate Yemeni sovereignty under foreign law and the 1972 World Heritage Convention.
It has also become transparent that the UAE was strengthening its control over Socotra through its proxy, the Southern Transitional Council (STC). The STC, a secessionist organization that does not easily seek the independence of the southern governorates from the north, is financed and supported militarily through the United Arab Emirates. The head of the STC, Aidarous Al Zubaidi, lives in Abu Dhabi.
The UAE government fired the governor of Socotra and the president of the EPA, replacing them with unwavering figures for the Emirates. They also replaced the Yemeni infantrymen guarding the airport and seaport with UAE infantrymen, sent a UAE representative to the island, and replaced the UAE flags with those of the Republic of Yemen. In 2019, the U. S. government sent troops to install a Patriot missile formula in Socotra at the request of the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE’s ambition in occupying Socotra is to dominate the surrounding strategic sea routes, identify an intelligence center and expand tourism on the island.
The United Arab Emirates has radically changed the way of life of the islanders. For example, on Abd al-Kuri Island, citizens living on the island were forcibly evicted in 2022 to identify a UAE military base – a violation of foreign humanitarian law. and a war crime. In Socotra, which has a population of 60,000, the United Arab Emirates has encouraged citizens to sell their homes, promising landlords and paintings UAE rents as well as a higher quality of life.
A visitor who wishes to remain anonymous because of security concerns and who is familiar with Socotra explained that residents are dismayed by foreign occupiers disrupting their natural heritage and militarizing the island. The population of Hadibo has swollen due to an influx of Yemeni refugees fleeing the war and as a result of Indian and Pakistani laborers brought in by the UAE to work on their construction projects. Hadibo itself has been transformed by the construction of concrete and cement buildings without regard for traditional building practices and without the necessary infrastructure to support the growing population, such as adequate waste management.
Locals protest against the UAE profession. Many of them have been imprisoned in “unofficial detention centres” spread across the island by the UAE. They have also filed lawsuits with the Yemeni government, which is in de facto exile. in Riyadh, in relation to the looting and destruction of the island’s herbaceous resources by the UAE, adding the uprooting of rare plants and trees, the capture of rare birds for export and sale in the UAE, and the removal of ancient stones from archaeological sites and settlements.
In response, Saudi forces arrived in Socotra in 2018 to prevent aggression from the United Arab Emirates. Like the United Arab Emirates, they ignored the World Heritage Operational Guidelines, built their telecommunications tower and military base, and turned the EPA into a headquarters. Tensions over Socotra persist among the Saudi-led coalition partners.
Accelerating the destruction of climate and biodiversity
The destruction of the environment derives from two very similar processes: climate change and the destruction of biodiversity, which reinforce each other. Climate change is not the main driving force of biodiversity loss; It is human overexploitation and habitat destruction. Protecting biodiversity is helping to oppose climate replacement. In the case of the United Arab Emirates, activists, parliamentarians and the press have highlighted climate replacement while ignoring biodiversity loss.
As noted, the United Arab Emirates is in favor of the destruction of the biodiversity of a UNESCO World Heritage Site: the Socotra archipelago.
The UAE claims that its activities constitute long-term development projects, mainly under the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation; however, these actions infringe on the international legal status of Socotra as a World Heritage Site and its conservation zoning plan. Paragraph 98 of the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention states: “Legislative and regulatory measures at national and local levels should assure the protection of the property from social, economic, and other pressures or changes that might negatively impact the Outstanding Universal Value, including the integrity and/or authenticity of the property.”
In addition, such activities, such as increased intake of fossil fuels to supply electrical power for lighting, appliances, and air conditioning in newly constructed military, residential, and advertising buildings, increase Socotra’s vulnerability to climate change.
Uprooting trees releases carbon dioxide, which they store. The growing number of cars, trucks, ships and planes resulting from the UAE’s willingness to commercially exploit the island is leading to an increase in greenhouse fuel emissions, basically carbon dioxide.
Climate change in the archipelago is already manifesting itself in cyclones, emerging average temperatures, droughts exacerbating water scarcity, uprooting of rare trees, and reduced agricultural production for humans and animals, all of which the UAE is exacerbating.
Similarly, the UAE’s activities endanger the biodiversity of marine life along the archipelago’s coastline and surrounding seas. Oval coral stones from the sea coast and red granite from wadis (valleys) are being used to build walls around plots of land purchased on the coast through investors from Gulf countries, according to one resident. These activities bypass the conservation zoning plan, damage the landscape, and threaten soil erosion on the seashore and in the wadis during the rainy season.
Defying the WHC’s specifications, the UAE has expanded the seaport of Hadibo to accommodate warships delivering weapons to the island and announced that fishing vessels will load gigantic amounts of catch for sale abroad and the UAE’s fish industry. The UAE government has banned local fishermen from fishing near the seaport, depriving them of their livelihoods.
The occupiers have also imported plants, involving invasive alien species, and use insecticides despite warnings from the WHC that such movements threaten Socotra’s biodiversity. According to the United Nations Socotra Zoning Plan, 2000, Article 10: “The importation of seeds, seedlings, insecticides or fertilizers is prohibited from entering the Socotra Islands, unless the guilty government has carried out the mandatory analyses and examinations and issued entry permits in coordination with the council. “
The UAE is also bulldozing land for tourism, marketing Socotra as an adventure vacation site for tourists on visas issued by the UAE while facilitating flights from Abu Dhabi.
This is no joke
The UAE is destroying one of the most biodiverse archipelagos globally and accelerating climate change. Yet, it is the country responsible for hosting the UN COP28, with its top oil executive presiding over the climate summit.
World leaders and the UN are on the other side, allowing the UAE to continue its violations abroad with impunity. Climate activists and environmental organizations are ignoring a pressing biodiversity disaster because they focus strictly on fossil fuel emissions.
Similarly, the mainstream media sees no legal responsibility in the UAE’s destruction of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Riddled with controversy, COP28 is at a crossroads; it can either restore its credibility by exposing major environmental violations, such as those of the UAE in the Socotra archipelago, and adopt a more holistic approach that includes protecting biodiversity, or continue on a downward spiral.
Mouna Hashem, PhD, is a foreign growth representative with extensive experience in comparing growth systems and policies of United Nations agencies (United Nations Development Programme, UNICEF, International Labour Organization) and other organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and the World Bank, among others. She is also a researcher on Yemen’s socio-economic and political progress. His writings cover a variety of issues such as governance, poverty alleviation, and progress. Contribute to the Observatory.
Martha Mundy is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. He began his studies in northern Yemen (1973-77) and then taught in Jordan, Lebanon, France, the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2011-2012, he returned to Yemen to work with agronomists on agrarian transformation. Since the start of the war in 2015, she has tested the effect of politics and war on Yemen’s rural society and food systems, adding that she is the author of the “Coalition Strategies” report. in the Yemen War” (World Peace Foundation, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 2018). Contribute to the Observatory.
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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