Comment BAGHDAD — Extreme heat is crippling Iraq, forcing the overstretched power grid to shut down as authorities extend public holidays to protect workers from 125-degree temperatures. Iraq ranks fifth on the list of countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and is warming faster than much of the globe. Nearly 20 years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the country is ill-equipped to deal with the strain. In the southern provinces of Basra, Di Qar and Maishan, authorities said on Saturday that the power grid had lost power for a second night in a row, plunging millions of homes into darkness during the stormy night. Spoiled food in refrigerators. Parents would put their children in the car and drive for hours — the air conditioning in their vehicles was the only way to stay cool. By Sunday morning, the governor of Di Qar province, one of Iraq’s poorest, said a public holiday for government employees would be extended until the start of the religious holiday of Muharram on Tuesday, “due to the noticeable increase in temperature.” . Ten months after populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr won the largest number of seats in parliamentary elections here, politicians from the country’s Shia, Sunni and Kurdish blocs are fighting hard to form a new government. As a result, no budget has been approved and major spending decisions are on hold. But with forecasts showing that most Iraqi provinces were likely to experience temperatures of around 120 degrees or higher this week, the power grid is not the only public service to falter. Crisis in Iraq simmers as protesters shut down parliament Agriculture and fisheries, two critical pillars of the state’s efforts to wean itself off dependence on oil revenue, are being hit by the drought. Overstretched hospitals are dealing with cases of heatstroke or breathing difficulties possibly exacerbated by toxic fumes trapped in the air, doctors say. On the streets of Baghdad on Sunday, young boys scooped water from ice packs, shielding their faces from the sun with sweat-soaked handkerchiefs. Traffic veterans said their job was getting harder and harder. “I’ve been doing this for 16 years,” said Falah Nouri, 37, as he rested on a battered sidewalk by the Tigris River. “It’s not just the sun. It’s the fumes and how the concrete heats up under our feet.” He said his soles were burned and as a result he was wearing shoes recommended by his doctor. “He wants me to get permission, but how can I get permission? We have to work,” said the police officer angrily. At noon in many neighborhoods, one noise was missing from the usual hum: the sound of construction. Although day laborers often continue Baghdad’s building boom throughout the summer, this time it was very hot. On the usually verdant Abu Nawas Street, a construction worker looked delirious from the heat as he slumped against a withered tree. There was no shadow to be seen. With government power systems faltering across Iraq, locations ranging from government ministries to family homes are relying on private backup generators and an army of operators working in hot, dark trailers around the clock to keep running. But these carry their own risks. Powered by diesel fuel, they spew toxic fumes into the air, experts say, and customers are forced to pay exorbitant electricity prices to the unaccountable and often corrupt businessmen who own the machines. In Baghdad’s southeastern Zafraniya district, Habib Abdul Khadim, 49, could barely make his voice heard over the chilling roar of his generator. “We’re melting here!” cried. “Me and 40 million other Iraqis, we’re melting.” The heat was oppressive in his small office and he said the fumes seemed to form a kind of film over his eyes. All around the neighborhood suffered. On his office wall, the lists of families who now owed electricity bills grew. Inside his home, his newborn grandson, Adam, was crying as he struggled to breathe. “Every year we think it can’t get any worse, but after the summer it surprises us,” Abdul Khadim said. He looked exhausted. In the summer months, Baghdad’s heat subsides only when a dust storm erupts, blanketing the city in windblown sand and dirt particles as Baghdad’s green belt dries out. This summer thousands of people were hospitalized with respiratory problems as a result. Doctors can’t do much. “We just give them hydrocortisone and some time away from the storm,” Saif Ali said on a recent day, the beds in his emergency room still sandy from his patients’ feet. “But every year it gets worse.” Iraq’s combination of increasing heat and water shortages caused by climate change, mismanagement and reduced upstream flows has caused a stir in the past. In the south, conditions are forcing families off their farmlands and into cities, where tensions with long-time residents are rising amid dwindling resource values. In the city of Basra, where residents braced Sunday for another night without power, pollution and toxic waste contaminated the city’s water in 2018, causing more than 100,000 people to be hospitalized with abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea. Large demonstrations followed, but the authorities crushed them with deadly force. Across Iraq, small demonstrations decrying poor services in the face of extreme heat are held every week. In Iraq’s swamps – some of them now cracked layers of soil in place of the silver pools where the Garden of Eden is said to have been – a protester’s sign last month expressed misery. “If you ask me about the state of my land, I will tell you,” he wrote. “Drought, poverty, forced migration, violence.” Baghdad’s record heat offers a glimpse into the future of global climate change From the Cradle to the Grave: How the Cradle of Civilization Runs Dry
