Influences of CO ₂ emissions on temperature change and global warming in the United Arab Emirates

After discovering oil around 1960, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) faces very fast economical development accompanied with population growth. These bring tremendous demand on energy in different sectors such as industry, commercial and residential. Oil was a main source to generate energy to respond to these great demands. This study presents the relationship between CO ₂ emission and temperature change in the UAE with respect to the global warming. The CO ₂ emissions of UAE in last 48 years are averaged about 33.6 metric tons per capita. This clearly shows that an average of UAE's CO ₂ emission in last 48 years is about 8 times higher than the world average CO ₂ emissions of 4.1 metric tons per capita. In the UAE, the highest and the lowest temperature were 28.7 (in 1998) and 26.5 °C (in 1992) respectively during the last 18 years. The mean rainfall data exhibit more scattering than the mean temperature data. During the last 10 years, even though the mean average temperature data indicates stabilization of around 28.4°C, the mean average rainfall data shows considerable decrement from 12.8 to 4.61 mm compare to the previous years. If this trend continues for decades, the area will have less and less rain and will be hotter. Accordingly, it is a fact that increases in CO ₂ concentration in the atmosphere cause temperature increase and contribute to global warming.