Athra Khamis

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Athra Khamis is a climate change analyst at the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment. Her areas of expertise include climate change scenarios, atmospheric composition, water resource analysis, environmental ecosystems, and sustainability.

Athra is taking part in different sustainable communities and is a member of the United People Group, the Future Sustainability Leaders program at Masdar City, and youth forums at the International Renewable Energy Agency in the UAE.

Previously, Athra was a teaching and research assistant at Khalifa University, where she worked on exploring halophyte hydrodynamics and the role of vegetation traits on ecosystem response to the disturbance of climate and atmosphere in coastal ecosystems. Athra extracted data from the only mangrove measurement station in the MENA region, created a program analyzing the traits of 60 mangrove species around the world, and participated in several conferences discussing mangrove productivity under future atmospheric fertilization scenarios.

Athra also worked as a research assistant at the University of Sharjah, focusing her research work on the effect of climate change on drought, using temperature and precipitation metrological indices to assess drought and its propagating effects to urge policy development.
One of her research projects won second place in the Asia Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development (ACESD) 2019 conference in Japan and was published accordingly.

Athra’s received a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Sharjah and an M.S. in Water and Environmental Engineering (water resources track) from Khalifa University of Science and Technology.

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Photo by Waleed Zein/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

Breaking down the details of the UAE’s climate strategy

In the race to manage climate change, the UAE is ramping up its efforts in a bid to accelerate its transition to a green economy. In the first two weeks of July 2023, it published several important documents laying out its actions and objectives, including a revised version of the national climate pledges it made under the Paris Agreement, as well as a number of targeted policies and strategies.

Photo by Mohamed Abdel Hamid/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Expert Views: Reflections on COP27

With COP27 concluded, we asked experts from across MEI, some of whom attended the meeting, to offer their perspectives on the developments that came out of the conference and what it means moving forward, especially for the Middle East and North Africa.

The environmental cost of electric vehicles

“Get an electric vehicle!” This might be the first idea that comes to mind when considering how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transportation at the community level. Fossil fuels are widely recognized as a significant source of emissions due to the large amount of carbon dioxide they produce when burned, but what about the emissions associated with electric vehicles?