Description
Jordan is one of the world’s most resource poor, arid and freshwater stressed countries. It is also exceptionally vulnerable to the effects of climate change and has limited mitigation and adaptation capacities. Its environmental challenges have long been exacerbated by poor governance, mismanagement of natural resources (especially freshwater) and associated infrastructure, demographic pressures, and its low levels of economic resiliency. Over the two last decades anthropogenic climate change has aggravated these challenges further. Based on analysis of official climate change policy documentation and elite interviews, we argue that the government promotes a climate change discourse that aims to attract financial, technical and political support from external audiences, and to present Jordan as a modernising and progressive state that seeks to promote the well-being of its citizens by helping them deal with climate change at home. The Hashemite regime’s traditional focus on its own survival is found to outweigh its concern with the longer-term implications of climate change. While Jordan is rarely mentioned in global climate change discussions and debates, we argue that due its climate change vulnerability and low levels of resilience, and its important role in Middle Eastern politics, it is necessary to examine how climate change mitigation and adaptation policies are approached in the kingdom as this can tell us more about authoritarian regimes’ climate change politics and survival strategies.
