Competition over resources
In the environmentally constrained but more populous world that can be expected over the course of this century, there will be greater scarcity of three key resources: food, water and energy. Demand for all three resources is already beyond that which can be sustained at current levels. Once population growth and the effects of climate change are factored in, it is clear that greater competition for such resources should be expected, both within and between countries, potentially leading in extreme cases to conflict.
Friction over shared – and shrinking – water resources is escalating in south Asia, where India and Pakistan are at loggerheads over river rights. Joydeep Gupta reports.
International Alert, together with the Bangladesh Institute for Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS) and the Regional Centre for Security Studies and the Peacebuilding and Development Institute in Sri Lanka, co-hosted an expert roundtable on the Security Implications of Climate Change in South Asia in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 29th-30th March 2010.
A 1960 trans-boundary water sharing agreement between India and Pakistan has stood the test of two wars and various periods of unease. Climate change, however, may prove the toughest test of the Indus River deal, observers say. The two rival South Asian nations share the 190 billion cubic meters of Himalayan snowmelt that course through the Indus each year. The river originates from India's Himalayan Hindu Kush mountains and flows through Jammu and Kashmir and then through Pakistan to reach the Arabian Sea. But experts say that climate change could alter the timing and rate of snow melt, with an initial increase in annual runoff followed eventually by a steep decrease that will severely curb river flows. That could provoke conflict between the two nations, particularly as India develops dams along the upper riches of the Indus, raising questions in Pakistan over whether falling water availability is due to climate change or to India's reservoirs.
Good news does not sell newspapers. Nor, it seems, does the idea of respect for human dignity. In West Asia, where the majority of people have known little other than outright war or simmering conflict, it should come as little surprise that people have lost their faith in the possibility of real peace. Real peace can be a frightening prospect; it means burying the hatchet and beating swords into the proverbial ploughshares. No easy task when we are all burdened by historical and psychological baggage.
