al rayyan at a suburban park near doha the capital city of qatar cool air from vents in the ground blasted joggers on a november day that reached almost 32 degrees celsius 90 degrees fahrenheitthe small park with airconditioned paths is an apt illustration of world cup host qatars answers so far to the rising temperatures its people facethe wealthy gulf arab nation has been able to pay for extreme adaptive measures like this thanks to the natural gas it exports to the worlda small peninsula that juts out into the persian gulf qatar sits in a region that outside the arctic is warming faster than anyplace else on earthits already bad and its getting worse said jos lelieveld an atmospheric chemist at germanys max planck institutepart of the reason is the warming waters of the persian gulf a shallow narrow sea that contributes to stifling humidity in qatar during some monthsits a pretty difficult environment its quite hostile said karim elgendy an associate fellow at the londonbased chatham house think tankwithout its ability to pay for imported food heavy airconditioning and desalinated ocean water he said the contemporary country couldnt existalready qatar has faced a significant rise in temperatures compared to preindustrial timesscientists and others concerned about climate change are trying to keep the earth as a whole from warming by more than 2 degrees celsius 36 degrees fahrenheit on average because research shows it will be profoundly disruptive making many people homeless inundating coastlines and destroying ecosystemsqatar has an enormous amount to lose in terms of the effects of climate change said mohammed ayoub a professor at the environment and energy research institute at qatars hamad bin khalifa universityit is one of the worlds hottest countries and will experience even more heat extremes floods droughts and sand and dust stormsclimate pledgesif qatar is one of the worlds wealthiest nations per capita it is also one of the most polluting per personaround this country slightly smaller than the us state of connecticut large suvs are a common sight filled with cheap gasolineairconditioning blasts the insides of buildings yearround even the countrys drinking water is energy intensive with nearly all of it coming from desalination plants that burn fossil fuel for the force needed to press ocean water through tiny filters to make it consumablein recent years qatar has inched forward making climate pledges at the 2015 paris climate talks it did not commit to reducing emissions but set a goal six years later to cut emissions 25 per cent by 2030one way would be to use carbon capture and storage at gas production facilities a muchdiscussed technology that has yet to be deployed at scalerecently the country also connected a solar power plant to its electric grid that could power 10 per cent of the nations energy needs at full capacityin doha there is a new metro system more green spaces and parks and the upscale msheireb district which was designed to take advantage of natural wind flowsbut its