Kuwait, among world's hottest places, lags on climate action

JAHRA, Kuwait (AP) — It was so hot in Kuwait last summer that birds dropped dead from the sky.

Sea horses boiled to death in the bay. Dead clams coated the rocks, their shells popped open like they’d been steamed.

Kuwait reached a scorching temperature of 53.2 degrees Celsius (127.7 degrees Fahrenheit), making it among the hottest places on earth.

The extremes of climate change present existential perils all over the world. But the record heat waves that roast Kuwait each season have grown so severe that people increasingly find it unbearable.

By the end of the century, scientists say being outside in Kuwait City could be life-threatening — not only to birds. A recent study also linked 67% of heat-related deaths in the capital to climate change.

And yet, Kuwait remains among the world’s top oil producers and exporters, and per capita is a significant polluter. Mired in political paralysis, it stayed silent as the region’s petrostates joined a chorus of nations setting goals to eliminate emissions at home — though not curb oil exports — ahead of last fall’s U.N. climate summit in Glasgow.

Instead, Kuwait's prime minister offered a years-old promise to cut emissions by 7.4% by 2035.

“We are severely under threat,” said environmental consultant Samia Alduaij. "The response is so timid it doesn’t make sense.”

Racing to burnish their climate credentials and diversify their economies, Saudi Arabia pitches futuristic car-free cities and Dubai plans to ban plastic and multiply the emirate's green parks.

While the relatively small populations of oil-rich Gulf Arab states mean their pledges to cut emissions are minor in the grand scheme to limit global warming, they have symbolic significance.

Yet the gears of government in...