On 2 February, a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, based on the work of 2,500 scientists, will give its strongest warning yet that we face potentially catastrophic climate disruption.
The developed nations have barely begun to consider the impact of these changes, as President Bush's inadequate measures in a so-called "environmentally centred” State of the Union address made clear.
On these pages our specialist contributors spell out a stark message. Chaotic weather change poses grave threats to economic stability and social cohesion. If we act now mankind has a future. But it must be a radically different one.
Barbara Gunnell
There are some aspects of global warming that we have barely begun to understand. Yet climate change will trigger enormous physical and social changes, including water scarcity, population movement, pollution and natural disasters.
The security implications of this are unprecedented. They are enormous in scope, redefining what we think of as a global threat. We should prepare for climate change to intensify political conflict and violence. If we don’t reposition policies to address the so far invisible threats posed by global warming - for example, the struggle for land in drought-stricken areas, or the displacement of people in coastal zones and small islands - the consequences could be catastrophic.
First, though, we must accept the science. We need to know what to expect. Some facts are well documented and widely acknowledged: increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes; increased average surface and ocean temperatures; increased global rainfall from increased evaporation; greater variability in rainfall and temperature, including more frequent and severe floods and droughts; rising sea levels, exacerbated by melting continental ice fields; extended ranges and seasons for mosquitoes and other tropical-disease carriers.
Such changes may be gradual or happen abruptly - we don’t yet know. However, scientists are increasingly concerned at the possibility of abrupt, catastrophic climate change. One scenario puts Britain’s coastline seriously at threat - as David King, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, said of the melting of the Greenland ice sheet: “The maps of the world will have to be redrawn.” A different scenario, a sudden shift in the Gulf Stream, would leave western Europe without the warm waters that keep its climate hospitable, thrusting it into a new ice age. Such physical changes could generate any number of adverse socio-economic impacts, including shortfalls in drinking water and water for irrigation, with risks of famine; sudden increases in the rates and geographic scope of malaria and other diseases; associated shifts in economic output and trade patterns; changes and large shifts in human migration patterns; and major human and economic losses resulting from extreme weather events such as hurricanes.
The security implications are highly significant. Climate change has already altered the distribution and quality of fresh water, arable land and coastal territory. Researchers have speculated that these changes could cause or prolong armed conflict. The link between the environment and armed conflict is well established. Competition for natural resources (such as diamonds, timber, oil, water and even narcotics) has motivated violence in such disparate places as Kuwait, Colombia and Afghanistan. Natural resources have helped finance insurgencies in Angola, Sierra Leone and elsewhere. Environmental degradation - for example, soil erosion and deforestation resulting from regional climate change - is likely to make such conflicts more likely.
The examples of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita should leave us in no doubt that natural disasters can be a great security threat. Many of those affected by such disasters become refugees or internally displaced persons. The experience of Hurricane Katrina was shocking enough, in an advanced economy with a highly developed infrastructure. But where a country lacks the capability or will to help affected popu lations, the security issues may be huge. Local and national government can be undermined; grievances increased; the rule of law itself threatened.
Severe impact
The consequences of a collapse of health services in some countries are a further consideration. A recent study by the World Health Organisation and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimates that global warming may already be responsible for upwards of 160,000 deaths a year from malaria and malnutrition. The authors of the study estimate that this number could double by 2020.
Climate-related security risks will affect some governments more than others. Three types of nation are particularly vulnerable: the least-developed, weak states and undemocratic countries. The poorest countries are the most likely to suffer. They lack the economic, governance or technical capabilities to adapt. They lack the capacity to prevent or react to humanitarian disasters such as floods. Developing nations in the tropics face the most severe consequences of climate change, including extreme weather, drought and disease.
Weak states - those with weak institutions of government, poor control over their borders, repressed populations or marginal economies - also run a high risk of being destabilised by climate change. Such failed or failing states have almost no capacity to respond to climate change or prevent it from triggering a large-scale humanitarian disaster.
We have seen this in Somalia, where drought, crop failure and subsequent state failure led to tens of thousands of deaths in the 1990s. Vulnerability to drought in the Darfur region of Sudan is now exacerbated by the country’s ongoing internal conflict. Whether or not these droughts are attributable to climate change, the episodes indicate what one would expect with global warming.
Twenty years ago, the economist Amartya Sen noted that democracies - in which leaders have to be responsive to people who can vote them out of power - do not produce famines. The 20th century is full of examples of undemocratic regimes failing to protect populations at risk of drought, floods and other weather-related phenomena. Populations in undemocratic states will be particularly vulnerable to the humanitarian crises induced by climate change.
The United States causes 30.3 per cent of all global warming and must take a leading role in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. It can be done, but only with a leadership willing to accept the science and make saving the planet a priority.
Concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases are higher than they have ever been and these concentrations will climb for some time, even if a mitigation agenda succeeds. So, a two-part strategy is needed to deal with the adverse effects of climate change. First, we have to strengthen programmes for handling disasters and humanitarian crises in the countries that are already beginning to take climate change into account. But clearly, we must also focus effort on predicting and handling global-warming-related disasters in those poor, weak and undemocratic states where the consequences of sudden climate change will be most catastrophic.
If we are not to face a future that includes persistent armed conflict and violence, then the rich world’s most significant policy challenge is to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Tony McDermott is international presenter for Al Gore’s Climate Project. This article first appeared in the New Statesman magazine, published 29 January 2007
