My memories of Iran in the nineties tinkle with the sound of water. Of streams running down the slopes of the Alborz mountains above Tehran, fed by the snows of Mount Damavand. Of chinar leaves floating in the water channels that raced along Vali Asr, the long avenue that slopes through the city. Of sipping black tea from thin glasses under the Si-o-se Pol (the bridge of the 33 arches) in Isfahan as the Zayandeh Rud (literally, the life-giving river) flowed past.
But today, northern Iran brings up visions from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land:
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
One by one, Iran’s reservoirs are drying up. People walk on the dry bed of the Zayandeh Rud; the tea house under the arches must be bereft of all its charm. The turquoise Lake Urmia, the world’s sixth largest salt-water lake, has dried up to a depth of only half a metre and may soon go the way of the Aral Sea. The nightmarish possibility of having to evacuate the 10 million strong capital looms large.
Located in the dry latitudes, drought is not new in Iran, but is now in its fifth consecutive year. Admittedly, Iran has not done enough to avoid this crisis and its experience should be a cautionary tale for those in India who salivate to bring ‘development’ to fragile ecosystems. There is rampant over-extraction of ground water including through illegal boring; in fact, the subsidence created by this over-extraction now endangers the architectural treasures of Isfahan. Iran’s agricultural practices—famously inefficient—heighten wasteful consumption. Faulty policies, gross mismanagement and poorly built dams further exacerbate the situation.
But undeniably, climate change with steadily rising temperatures has been the trigger for the present dire situation. More than 20 provinces of the country have not had a drop of rain in what is officially the rainy season. Snow cover has decreased by almost 99 per cent nationwide compared to last year, and rainfall is down 89 per cent against long-term averages; in fact there has been a 30 per cent reduction in rainfall over the last five years.
Geopolitics twists matters further. Sanctions hamper Iran’s ability for climate change mitigation by curbing access to international finance and green technologies. Iran is yet to ratify the Paris Agreement of 2015. Its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) pledged a reduction of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions by four per cent by 2030 plus a further eight per cent decrease contingent on removal of US sanctions, and that is nowhere in sight. Iran remains among the top ten emitters of GHG, given its reliance on fossil fuels. The 12-day war with Israel has further damaged the water infrastructure in Iran. In a cynical offer, Benjamin Netanyahu has offered to supply water experts and technologies if the Iranian people take to the streets and effect regime change: this proposal, if there was enough water, would be dead in a cupful.
Belem in Brazil, where the COP30 is in its second week, may be far from Tehran but the issues are all inter-connected. What happens to the Amazon impacts rainfall patterns everywhere. While the indigenous people of the Amazon are protesting in Belem against deforestation, mining and drilling in the lungs of the world, the Iranians are flocking to the mosques, hands raised in prayer.
Neither protest nor prayer are going to help much. Man by his selfishness, his ever-growing greed, his rampant lust to ravage the earth, has angered the gods and they are not listening.