Page 11 - IRANRptMar21
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Disasters in the making
Iran, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are among 19 countries for which the inaugural edition of the Ecological Threat Register (ETR), lately released by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), brings particularly ominous news. The trio are among 19 countries, of 157 assessed, deemed the most fragile with high exposure to ecological threats and the highest risk of future collapse in the decades ahead.
The ETR concludes that the three countries with the highest exposure to ecological shocks are Afghanistan, which is facing six ecological threats, and Mozambique and Namibia, which are each facing five. Another 16, including Iran and the two mentioned Central Asian nations, face four ecological threats.
As for Russia, the rest of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) and Azerbaijan and Georgia in the South Caucasus, as well as Turkey and Mongolia, the picture is still rather bleak with medium exposure (two to three threats) to ecological dangers applying throughout this geography.
According to the Sydney-headquartered IEP, the register has determined that approximately one billion people live in countries that do not have the resilience to deal with the ecological changes they are expected to face between now and 2050. Not all of these people will be displaced, however it is likely that a large number of them will be.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of five countries shown by the ETR with the highest water stress, the others being Qatar, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan.
It also ranks sixth among the 20 countries with the most displaced people from disasters, with 520,000 people displaced by five disasters. In terms of disasters, the country is seen as most exposed to floods.
Iran also features in a group of 31 “hotspot” countries home to more than one billion people that face both high ecological threats and low levels of resilience.
11 IRAN Country Report March 2021 www.intellinews.com
