Climate change
Climate change is high on both domestic and international political agendas as countries face up to the huge environmental challenges the world now faces. Whilst this attention is welcome, less energy is being focused on the inevitable impact climate change will have on security issues. The well-documented physical effects of climate change will have knock-on socio-economic impacts, such as loss of infrastructure, resource scarcity and the mass displacement of peoples. These in turn could produce serious security consequences that will present new challenges to governments trying to maintain stability.
From the Center for American Progress:
This new FPC publication is being launched to mark World Environment Day (5 June). The report aims to stimulate discussion and debate amongst a wide ranging audience in an effort to promote the centrality of water on today's foreign policy agenda, particularly in light of the increasing environmental shocks and stresses presented by climate change and global population growth. In an increasingly interconnected world, where cooperation is no longer an option but an imperative, how can foreign policy inform and provide a more effective response to improving the management of freshwater while ensuring reliable and sustainable access?
This excellent report by International Alert examines the growing risk of armed conflict as a result of climate change now being experienced by some of the most fragile regions of the world, and reveals the alarming consequences of continued inaction to enable affected countries to adapt to the consequences of climate driven changes on their populations.
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.