United Arab Emirates (UAE)

By staff - Fair Square, December 9, 2023

The image of climate-friendly menus being pushed at this year’s global climate conference, COP28 in Dubai, UAE, clashes with the stark reality faced by vulnerable communities in the host country, and its impact on the environment, a new report released today unveils.

The official COP28 website proclaims that, “Our focus is to deliver sustainable, affordable, delicious, and nutritious food. COP28 UAE will deliver a catering menu which is largely plant based, emphasizing local and regional produce and promoting environmentally-friendly food consumption.” The site also describes how the COP28 Presidency is “striving to show the world how climate-friendly food can be tasty, healthy and affordable.”

However the team of investigators behind the report – who are based in the Gulf and remaining anonymous to protect their safety – found that outside the venue, the reality for many workers in the UAE was in stark contrast to “environmentally-friendly food consumption”.

The 40-page report, Harvesting Disparity: Climate Change, Food and Water Security, and Migrants of the UAE, explores pronounced disparities in access to quality, nutritious food for migrant workers who grapple with working hours and wage theft that hinder their ability to secure proper meals, while also examining the broader impacts of UAE food supply chain practices on climate and vulnerable communities abroad.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By staff - Equidem, November 20, 2023

Workers at the heart of the United Arab Emirates's renewable and gig sectors, and at the site that will host the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) have left homes in Africa and Asia because of climate change only to be subjected to physical abuse, heat stress, exploitation and discrimination, a new report from Equidem reveals. Serious labour violations have taken place at the site of COP28, Expo City, as well as at five renewable energy firms, including Siemens Energy. 

Based on correspondence with 248 workers, and interviews with 102, the expansive report offers unprecedented insight into the renewables, construction, security, and delivery sectors in the UAE, shedding light on both industrial and service sector working conditions for 9 million migrant workers. 

The shining facilities at Expo City Dubai boast internationally lauded solar and wind parks and a booming local gig economy. Underneath that cheerful exterior, however, women and men from some of the poorest countries on earth are falling victim to an unjust transition: Migrant workers from Africa and Asia are being subjected to serious human rights abuses in a nation whose oil and gas-powered economy is at the heart of the planet’s climate crisis. 

“Hosting this peak global conference in a climate and rights abusing state was bad enough. Equidem’s research starkly reveals that the UAE is failing on almost every metric of the UN’s own human rights benchmarks for addressing climate change through the COP process,” said Mustafa Qadri, CEO of Equidem. 

Abuses include workplace violence, wage theft, working in extreme heat and other occupational health and safety risks, nationality-based discrimination, exploitative hiring practices, understaffing and overwork, lack of opportunities for promotion, overcrowded accommodations, inadequate food allowances, and inadequate channels for workers to seek relief from these violations. 

Investigations by Equidem were carried out between February and October 2023 at Expo City Dubai and in the renewables and delivery sectors, including at Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, Al Dhafra Solar Power Project, Noor Abu Dhabi Solar Plant, Sir Bani Yas Wind Farm Project; and in the delivery sector in the UAE. 

• Together, 57% of the migrant workers interviewed come from climate impacted areas of Asia and Africa.
• 41 % of the workers reported nationality-based discrimination.
• 77.% of the workers in renewable sector reported living in overcrowded accommodations, with up to 20 people in a room fit for six or fewer workers.
• 83% of the African and Asian workers interviewed reported being unable to afford nutritious and healthy food.
• 40% of the workers said they were skipping meals.

Equidem’s research found that African and Asian workers have migrated for employment based upon climate impacts in their own country, and then find employment in the industrial and service sectors in the UAE. These migrant workers are doubly impacted by the global climate crisis—they migrate in response to climate impacts and find employment in exploitative industrial and service contexts where they work long hours in extreme heat. These rights violations take place against a backdrop of racially delineated exclusion from labour rights protections, denial of freedom of association, and authoritarian suppression of dissent in the UAE. 

Download a copy of this publication here (Link).

By staff - Climate Justice Coalition and The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, November 2023

The role of climate change in both forced displacement and wider migration is increasingly apparent, with climate impacts on people in marginalised communities becoming more severe and more people being forced to leave their homes, the majority of whom are moving within or between countries in the Global South. At the same time, countries and corporations in the Global North profit from the increased militarisation and proliferation of racist border policies. A militarised response to a heating world, in the form of walls, camps and drones, will only increase suffering and prolong the climate emergency. Climate action must include justice for all people everywhere.

With COP28 taking place in the UAE, from 30 November until 12 December 2023, civil society will be talking about climate and migration. This briefing note aims to guide communicators and campaigners on how migrant justice intersects, and how to talk about climate-linked mobility in a way that is justice aligned and does not stoke fears and insecurities.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Cristen Hemingway Jaynes - EcoWatch, October 20, 2023

As participants and representatives from nearly 200 countries gear up for next month’s COP28 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai, some of the preparations have been found to be very dangerous and potentially deadly.

According to a new investigation, This Weather Isn’t for Humans, by nonprofit human rights research and advocacy group FairSquare, migrant workers were working outdoors in extreme heat last month to prepare conference facilities for the talks.

The work conditions they were subjected to posed serious health threats and were “in clear violation” of laws intended to protect workers from the country’s harsh climate, a press release from FairSquare said.

On two days last month, workers were working outside in high heat and humidity during the “midday ban,” a law that prohibits working outdoors during the hottest parts of the day in the summer in order to protect workers from dangerous heat exposure, according to testimonies and visual evidence gathered by researchers, reported The Guardian.

By staff - FairSquare, October 2023

A FairSquare investigation has found that in September 2023, migrant construction workers on Dubai’s COP28 site were put to work outdoors in extreme heat that posed very serious threats to their health and could be fatal, and in clear violation of the United Arab Emirates’ laws designed to protect outdoor workers from its harsh climate. With temperatures in Dubai as high as 42 degrees celsius at the time, the combination of heat and humidity workers were likely exposed to exceeds upper limits where construction work can safely be performed, according to internationally recognised standards. FairSquare has obtained evidence that in early September over two separate days, work took place on at least three separate outdoor sites on Expo City between 12.30pm and 3pm, the hottest part of the day.

The sites were located at the Dubai Exhibition and Convention Centre and the Opportunity site, both of which will be within or adjoining the “blue zone”, the UN managed zone where world leaders will rub shoulders during the COP28 climate conference in November this year. An Expo City representative told media last month that the site was undergoing “major, major preparations in many areas” to get ready for COP28.

The work, which involved small numbers of workers on each site – took place during the summer time “midday ban”, a 150 minute block each day when for three months of the year all outdoor work is banned by law across the UAE. The UAE government claims that this protects workers from sustaining injuries from the country’s extreme heat

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).