| Pilgrims need a specific type of visa to access Mecca during hajj – although the visa itself is free, it comes as part of an expensive package that costs thousands of dollars. To avoid these costs, hundreds of thousands of people participate by going through unofficial channels and using Saudi Arabia’s regular tourism visa to enter the country. Those who used unlicensed tour operators to complete hajj were left unprotected from the scorching temperatures, with no access to air conditioned facilities and transport laid on by authorities. Saudi officials have said that 83% of the deceased were unregistered pilgrims. The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and a profoundly important spiritual experience for the millions of people who travel to Mecca. The date of the pilgrimage is determined by the lunar calendar, which is why it has once again fallen during the blazing Saudi summer. The extreme heatwave was made five times more likely by human-induced climate change according to the non-profit Climate Central. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is warming at a rate 50% higher than the rest of the northern hemisphere. What does that mean for the future of hajj? Why did so many people die? The combination of extreme heat induced by the climate crisis, and the cost of living crisis in places like Egypt created a tinderbox last week. The Saudi government has largely laid the blame for the excess deaths on the individuals who chose to travel without relevant authorisation and the travel operators who facilitated it, without recognising the underlying reasons why people may feel the need to skirt regulations. Egypt, for instance, has been going through economic turmoil for years, and impoverished Egyptians can barely afford basic goods, but that does not quell the deep-seated need to perform hajj. Arab diplomats told the press that Egyptians accounted for 658 deaths, 630 of which were unregistered pilgrims. “Unregistered people were staying in accommodation that was further away from many of the important pilgrimage sites and they couldn’t use most of the amenities that the Saudi authorities provided as part of these very expensive hajj packages,” Ruth says. In Egypt, an official hajj package costs more than $6,000 at a time when the value of the Egyptian pound has almost completely collapsed. Unofficial travel operators exploited a rising demand from people who were looking for ways to fulfil their religious obligation without spending enormous amounts of money. “There are villages in Egypt where people will save for one person in the village to go to do the hajj – for many it’s a communal effort,” Ruth says. Many also save up for a long time to afford the trip, so a large proportion of pilgrims are older or dealing with health conditions, leaving them even more vulnerable to the heat. Summers in Saudi Arabia were always hot, but now with high humidity and more frequent – and more severe – heatwaves, there is no way to function without air conditioning and other artificial cooling methods. The climate crisis will only continue to exacerbate rising temperatures, with a 2019 study from MIT warning that heatwaves could pose “extreme danger” to pilgrims in the coming decades. The response The Saudi government’s response to ensuring the safety of pilgrims has mainly been about performing a kind of “security theatre”, Ruth says. But increasing checkpoints and deploying armed guards neglects to acknowledge the reality – that is, that as government-sponsored packages become more unaffordable there will continue to be a rise in unregulated visitors and tour groups. There were also issues with the government’s transparency, or lack thereof. Saudi authorities did not address heat-related deaths directly for several days and were slow to connect people with their families, Ruth says. “People were getting separated in these huge crowds from their loved ones and not knowing if they’re alive or dead, which is obviously not what people go to have this kind of experience for. It’s beyond distressing, it’s tragic. And yet this is a tragedy that is preventable, and which could be foreseen given the climate conditions and the time of year”. The future Saudi Arabia has said that it supports the Paris climate agreement and insists that it is taking the climate crisis seriously by diversifying its economy away from fossil fuels, and moving away from its reliance on oil. In reality, negotiators said that the Gulf state became “the biggest obstacle to an agreement” at Cop28. (At one point, Saudi Arabia even argued that wind and solar power pose a significant climate threat.) Instead, the focus of the world’s largest oil exporter has been to fund their way out of the worst effects of the climate crisis by spending large sums of money on untested technologies like carbon capture. According to the scientific watchdog Climate Action Tracker, Saudi Arabia’s climate policies are “critically insufficient” and “reflect minimal to no action”, all while large portions of the Middle East are predicted to become uninhabitable by the end of this century. “This has been framed as an issue of personal responsibility – blaming people for not being able to buy their way out of the problem,” says Ruth. “But that solves absolutely nothing – starting with how this pilgrimage is going to work in the future”. | 