Upon the opening of the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday, delegates were immediately met with a suffocating heat lingering in the outdoor badge collection line snaking through Expo City Dubai…

…imagine it is July or August, when temperatures this year exceeded 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). And rather than wait in line, imagine delegates are required to labor without shade or water.

This is the experience of the UAE’s migrant workers, who form 88 percent of the population and often occupy outdoor positions in physically strenuous jobs like construction.

The UAE has failed to protect workers from the dangers of extreme heat, relying on arbitrary, pre-defined midday work bans in summer months instead of more effective risk-based standards, such as the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) index, or applying evidence-based guidelines that impose work stoppages when conditions become dangerous…

The UAE is essentially externalizing climate risks to migrant workers, who are disproportionately exposed to extreme heat, without ensuring adequate protections and by sending workers facing serious health harms home without remedy. Workers we spoke with told us that “the air is hot as fire” and “our clothes become so hot they burn.”…