Salt residue is seen on arid farmland in al-Muthanna Province, Iraq, October 11, 2022. "Climate change is a reality in Iraq," said the United Nations mission in Iraq, adding that the country was the world's fifth most vulnerable to the fallout from global warming due to rising temperatures, lower rainfall, salinity, and dust storms. "Desertification now threatens almost 40 percent of the area of our country - a country that was once one of the most fertile and productive in the region," Iraq's President Abdul Latif Rashid told the climate summit in Egypt last week. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani SEARCH "CLIMATE MIDEAST WATER" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES.