Kuwait is the world’s hottest city, and last summer, so many birds lost their lives from the sky.

In the bay, sea horses boiled to death. The rocks were covered in dead clams, and their shells popped open like they’d been steamed.

Kuwait reached a scorching temperature of 53.2 degrees Celsius, making it among the hottest places on earth.

Climate change extremes pose existential threats all over the world. However, the record heat waves that suffocate Kuwait each season have become so severe that people find it increasingly unbearable.

Nearly at the end of the century, scientists stated that being outside in Kuwait City could be life-threatening, not only for birds, and as per recent studies, which is linked, that country faced 67 percent of deaths, and all were related to heat in the capital to climate change.

Moreover, Kuwait is the world’s top oil producer, and exporters, per capital, is a significant polluters. Mired in political paralysis, it stayed silent as the region’s petro states joined a chorus of nations setting goals to eliminating emissions at home—though not curb oil exports—ahead of last fall’s U.N. climate summit in Glasgow.

Instead, Kuwait’s prime minister reiterated a long-standing pledge to reduce emissions by 7.4 percent by 2035.

According to ‘Samia Alduaij‘, environment consultant, “We are severely under threat, and the response was so scary, and mainly it doesn’t make sense.

Racing to improve their environmental credentials and diversify their economies, Saudi Arabia promotes car-free cities, while Dubai plans to ban plastic and expand the emirate’s green parks.

While the oil-rich Gulf Arab states’ pledges to reduce emissions are minor in the grand scheme of limiting global warming, they have symbolic significance.

Nonetheless, the gears of government in Kuwait, a country of 4.3 million people, appear to be as stuck as ever—partly due to populist pressure in parliament and partly because the same authorities that regulate Kuwait’s emissions derive nearly all of their revenue from oil extraction.

“The government has the money, information, and manpower to make a difference,” said lawmaker Hamad al-Matar, the parliamentary environmental committee director. “It doesn’t care about environmental issues.”

According to the World Resources Institute, the country continues to burn oil for electricity and ranks among the top global carbon emitters per capita. As asphalt melts on highways, Kuwaitis bundle up for bone-chilling air-conditioning in malls. Renewable energy accounts for less than 1% of demand—far below Kuwait’s target of 15% by 2030.