• Sustainability (such as water stress and emissions)
• Safety (such as infectious diseases and hazardous materials)

The Arab Human Development Report of 2009 emphasizes the importance of the relationship between resource pressures, environmental sustainability and human security in the region. The impact of environmental factors on regional security and stability is increasingly being recognized as a trigger for potential conflict.

Many of the political tensions in the region over the past sixty years have environmental factors as a root cause. Going forward, the competition over resources will be exacerbated by continued population and demographic pressures, the overexploitation of land, water shortages, desertification, pollution and climate change.

A greater concern is the fact that there are too few existing mechanisms for joint and regional cooperation in this area. Contemporary environmental threats such as pandemic outbreaks, bio-security and bio-safety concerns, and hazardous material contaminations are cross-border by nature and require an even greater degree of inter-regional cooperation and coordination to address potential vulnerabilities.

In Perspective

Various experts claim the region has long entered a stage of water poverty based on available per capita renewable water resources which are less by seven times the worldwide average. This situation is made all the more serious given the fact that 57% of the total available surface water resources in the region originate from outside the region.

While the region is one of the least responsible for the direct creation of the greenhouse effect, countries in the region share directly or indirectly in the activities that lead to climate change. The region is a major producer and source of fossil fuels and it is more reliant on oil and gas a fuel source than any other region of the world, using for them for 54.2% and 40.2% of its fuel needs respectively.

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