Not so long ago, as night fell, there was respite from the Gulf's baking daytime temperatures.

But as anyone who has visited or lived here can attest to, these days the nights are often hot and muggy, even outside of the summer.

At Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, scientists have been studying this change – and say we're not imagining it. Nights are getting hotter, and the heat is growing at a faster pace than the daytime, with climate change the driving factor.

“Higher night-time temperatures will likely further exacerbate the mugginess in a region where the combination of heat and humidity at times exceeds the threshold for human habitability,” authors Dr Diana Francis and Dr Ricardo Fonseca wrote in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

The paper highlights previous research from 2021 that indicated that under a “business as usual” climate change scenario – if no measures to cut carbon emissions are taken – the Middle East and North Africa could experience “ultra-extreme heatwaves”.

This will “promote more extreme precipitation events”, raising the prospect that heavy rain of the kind that caused severe flooding in the UAE will happen more often, it warned.

The region's governments are often in a bind when it comes to climate change, weighing up economic realities of the need for oil and gas, while being on the front lines of climate change and witnessing some of the hottest conditions ever recorded. At Cop28 last year, these nations all backed an agreement to phase out fossil fuels over the next 30 years.

Prof Walter Leal, a climate change researcher at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, said there was a fast-growing need for all governments to act on climate targets.

“It is important that carbon emissions peak and then significantly decline in the coming decades to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change,” Prof Leal added.

Daniel Bardsley's full report is here.

Can palm oil ever be environmentally sustainable?

Palm oil is sometimes seen as a wonder commodity. It is a cheap cooking oil, an ingredient in any number of foods, a biofuel and it is found in numerous consumer products from cosmetics to detergents.

But it is also regarded as an environmental menace, as vast swathes of tropical forests are destroyed so that palm tree plantations can be grown in their place.

That leads to the question: Can it ever be environmentally sustainable? Experts have expressed hope the answer is yes, but to get there will depend on certain factors.

New EU regulations preventing the importation of products linked to deforestation could be key to forcing food companies to ensure that the palm oil they use really has been produced sustainably.

“This brings a much greater penalty on the company that’s importing. It will force them to scrutinise much more carefully what is actually going on in those sites of production,” said Prof Rory Padfield of the school of earth and environment at the University of Leeds in the UK.

Daniel Bardsley looks at the impact and what is could mean for the industry.

Low-cost sky pods could take traffic off packed roads

A 2.4km aerial track in Sharjah capable of transporting passengers in futuristic sky pods at speeds of up to 100kph has been unveiled for the first time.

Developed by uSky Transport, the pods that can carry 25 passengers at a time are on show at the $14 million Karat complex at Sharjah Research, Technology and Innovation Park (SRTIP).

They move on cables made of extremely durable material.

The National was among the first to take a journey on the cutting-edge mode of transport, which is expected to contribute to ambitious plans to take thousands of cars off the roads and curb congestion.

It has been three years since the unveiling of the first prototype of the urban mobility system designed by Belarusian scientist Anatoli Unitsky, that costs a fraction of a metro or tram.

Nick Webster's full report and video is here.

The big fact

More than 30 per cent of the world’s electricity came from renewable sources in 2023, a record driven by growth in wind and solar, according to think tank Ember Climate.

Jargon buster

Water vapour: Believe it or not, evaporated water is the main greenhouse gas that warms the planet. So why aren’t we slashing our water emissions?

For one thing, water only stays in the atmosphere for a matter of days – not like carbon dioxide, which can linger for hundreds of years.

This means water vapour produced by human activities hasn’t interfered with the Earth’s long-term climate system like CO2 emissions have.

Still, that doesn’t mean it’s nothing to worry about – as temperatures rise, more water evaporates and the effect of global warming is amplified.

Our full guide to understanding climate jargon is here.

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