Projected avoidance of heat risk in the Arabian Peninsula under carbon neutrality scenarios

The Paris Agreement stipulates that nations must reach a peak in global carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century to prevent anthropogenic global warming from exceeding perilous thresholds. Recently, much effort has been made to assess future changes in heat stress and related risks in the Arabian Peninsula (AP); however, a significant knowledge gap remains in accurately quantifying the heat-risk mitigation benefits of carbon-neutral policies, primarily due to inherent limitations in conventional climate simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). In this study, we used multi-model large ensemble simulations from the CovidMIP—a CMIP6-endorsed intercomparison project—to quantify the avoidable heat risks in AP during 2030–2049 under two distinct global carbon-neutral scenarios: a moderate green recovery (MOD) scenario by 2060 and a strong green recovery (STR) scenario by 2050, relative to a fossil-fueled baseline (FOS) scenario. The findings indicate that both STR and MOD scenarios offer substantial benefits by mitigating significant heat stress (0.28–0.48 °C and 0.06–0.22 °C), heat stress days (12–30 days and 2–10 days), urban population exposure (30% and 21%), and heat-related mortality risk (3.5% and 1.4%), respectively. Moreover, an additional 0.06–0.20 °C of heat stress, 2–10 heat stress days, 10% of urban population exposure, and a 2.1% reduction in heat-related mortality risk could be avoided if carbon neutrality is attained a decade earlier. These projected benefits are particularly pronounced in major urban centers of the AP, underscoring the need for the region's governments to implement ambitious carbon mitigation policies to mitigate heat risk in cities.