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.
This case study explores the potential impact of climate change on security and conflict in Bangladesh. As international researchers have started to make the link between climate change, insecurity and conflict, they have raised concerns that Bangladesh’s extreme vulnerability to the environmental effects of climate change may create conditions that put it at risk of greater insecurity and possible conflict.
The Middle East and North Africa is a region of great diversity. It encompasses Arab and many other ethnic populations, theocratic and secular states, democracies and authoritarian regimes. A region of immense wealth and crippling poverty; it is blessed (some might say cursed) with vast resources, not least oil, but has not always proved able to manage them for the benefit of ordinary people.
This major report was the result of an 18-month long research project examining the various threats to global security, and sustainable responses to those threats.
Climate change will have serious environmental, socio-economic and security consequences for both developed and developing nations alike. This report explores these consequences and demonstrates that they will present new challenges to governments trying to maintain domestic stability.