Though climate change and its effects do not recognize state borders, they affect states in the Levant in different ways due to variations in states’ geography, environment, economy, and government response. In Syria, the adverse effects of climate change have caused new and exacerbated existing socioeconomic problems, worsening living conditions for the Syrian people. In the past two decades, environmental conditions in Syria have deteriorated further because of unsustainable, unhelpful government policies. 

Environmental Effects of Climate Change in Syria 

• Drought and Desertification: In the years leading up to the Syrian civil war, the country experienced its worst drought on record. The drought began in the winter of 2006-2007 following a reduction in regional rainfall, which is the primary water source for the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and their tributaries. Lasting from 2007 to 2010, the drought followed a number of multi-year droughts in the 1980s and 1990s. 

• Water Scarcity: According to data collected by climatologists, water became much more scarce during the recent Syrian drought with decreased surface moisture and groundwater supplies. Rising temperatures contributed to drier soil and increased evaporation. In the years since the onset of the Syrian conflict, the country has faced rainfall deficits and other worsening environmental conditions. 
• Crop Failure: This water scarcity has substantially reduced vegetation and agricultural output. The drought caused widespread crop failure throughout the Syrian countryside and left farmers and nomadic herders without needed water sources for irrigation and livestock. According to former Vice President Al Gore, between 2006-2010, the severe drought destroyed 60% of Syrian farms and caused 80% of livestock to perish.
• Dust Storms: Another interrelated consequence of the Syrian drought has been increased sandstorms throughout the country and region. The sharp decline in Syrian farming caused an increase in the amount of untended soil, which can easily be swept up in a dust storm. 

Economic and Societal Effects 

• Food Insecurity: Syria’s reduced agricultural production has caused significant price hikes in imported food products like wheat and rice and greater food insecurity overall. Syria’s reduced irrigation capacity and pasture availability have diminished its cereal production and livestock while wheat production has reached record lows. In 2020, 50.25% of Syrians, were food insecure. 
• Urbanization and Population Displacement: As drought undermined hundreds of thousands of farmers’ livelihoods, many were forcibly displaced from rural areas to urban centers. While estimates vary, some reports suggest that as many as 1.5 million Syrians were internally displaced because of climate-related factors, meaning they became climate migrants or refugees. Additionally, the influx of more than one million Iraqi refugees by 2010 exacerbated the economic pressures and resource demand caused by internal population displacement in Syria. 
• Social Upheaval: Syria’s rapid urbanization prior to the civil war increased social unrest in the country’s cities, with greater competition for employment and increasingly scarce resources. As food and economic insecurity and climate migration rose in, the Assad regime violently suppressed protesters and worsened living conditions for the Syrian people.

Syrian Government Mismanagement 

• Unsustainable Environmental Policies: While climate change has worsened living conditions in Syria, the country’s government has also contributed to this issue. Even before the 2011 uprising, unsustainable agricultural policies like the overuse of water for water-intensive crops degraded agricultural land in Syria. This policy intensified the climate change effects and related issues on Syrians. Additionally, Syria lacked and still lacks the necessary drought monitoring and management capabilities to respond effectively to droughts and their negative byproducts.
• Poor Governance: The Assad regime failed to provide subsidies for powering irrigation pumps and transporting produce, exacerbating Syria’s water scarcity and crop failure. While the government had developed a national drought strategy by 2006, it did not implement the plan in time to alleviate the drought’s effects. The regime worsened the drought’s economic fallout by shutting down a micro-finance network of village funds a few years before the uprising. By taking away this network, which functioned as an income security net, the government denied rural Syrian farmers economic relief.