Torrential rains across the United Arab Emirates prompted flight cancellations, forced schools to shut and brought traffic to a standstill.

The heavy rains that caused widespread flooding across the desert nation came after cloud seeding. The UAE has been carrying out seeding operations since 2002 to address water security issues, even though the lack of drainage in many areas can trigger flooding.

Dubai is underwater. Heavy storms have caused flash flooding across the United Arab Emirates, leading to shocking scenes circulating on social media: Cars abandoned by the roadside, planes sloshing through flooded runways. Hundreds of flights have been canceled at Dubai’s busy international airport, and at least 18 people have died in neighboring Oman.

The United Arab Emirates is today attempting to dry out after the heaviest rain ever recorded in the desert nation caused utter chaos - but there are suspicions the horrific flooding in Dubai and elsewhere may have been self-inflicted.

The typically scorching UAE heavily relies on cloud-seeding - a technique which sees aircraft fire salt flares into clouds to speed up condensation and induce rainfall - to provide its groundwater. 

Soon after his country began bombing Yemen in 2015, the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates confidentially reached out to an old friend: retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who also served as the deputy supreme commander of the Emirati military, needed help. The UAE was part of a coalition of Arab countries that had intervened in Yemen’s civil war to fight Iran-backed Houthi rebels. But the coalition’s bombing campaign was killing large numbers of civilians and doing little to deter the Houthis.

His plane flanked by four fighter jets, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia began a rare trip on Wednesday to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, two oil-rich Gulf nations that have resisted pressure to take sides in the Ukraine war.

The talks touched on international crises, primarily Israel’s two-month-old war with Hamas — a conflict that has played into Mr. Putin’s geopolitical aims by distracting Western leaders from the war in Ukraine.

The world just took a big step toward compensating countries hit by deadly floods, heat and droughts.

Nearly all nations on Thursday finalized the creation of a fund to help compensate countries struggling to cope with loss and damage caused by climate change, seen as a major first-day breakthrough at this year’s U.N. climate conference. Some countries started putting in money right away — if little compared to the overall anticipated needs.

In an auspicious start for the two-week climate summit known as COP28, delegates agreed on the details of a fund to compensate developing countries for damages caused by warming temperatures.

The loss and damage fund, which was first created at last year's COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, has now been "operationalized," and some countries have already agreed to start paying into it. A draft agreement was circulated earlier in November, though some controversy surrounded its details, like the designation of the World Bank as the home for the fund.

The Biden administration has pledged millions of dollars to a de facto international “climate reparations” fund at the United Nations (UN) climate summit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The fund, referred to by its proponents as a “loss and damage fund,” is intended to have developed countries transfer money to the developing world as compensation for the impacts of climate change. The U.S. promised more than $17 million to the fund on Thursday, according to Axios.

Dubai, a desert city known for private jets, giant yachts and other symbols of carbon-heavy high living, is an awkward location for a conference on climate change. It’s hardly a surprise that the man in charge also runs the national oil company. 

Hosting the United Nations’ annual climate confab—known as COP28—is the latest step in the United Arab Emirates’ bid to establish itself as a global power broker. The gambit is drawing attention to the country’s Jekyll-and-Hyde energy strategy.