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.

Beyond Supply Risks: The Conflict Potential of Natural Resources

Lukas Rüttinger and Moira Feil | The New Security Beat | August 2011

Issue:Competition over resources

While the public debate about resource conflicts focuses on the risk of supply disruptions for developed countries, the potentially more risky types of resource conflict are usually ignored. As part of a two-year research project on behalf of the German Federal Environment Agency, adelphi and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy, and Environment have analyzed the risks of international conflict linked to natural resources in a series of reports titled Beyond Supply Risks – The Conflict Potential of Natural Resources.

Article source: The New Security Beat

Image source: Olmovich

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Posted on 11/08/11

Increasing Competition Over the Indus

David Michel | Stimson Center | August 2011

Issue:Competition over resources

Water managers in the Indus Basin will have to overcome a host of overlapping socio-economic, environmental, and policy pressures as they strive to fulfill their society's future water needs writes the Stimson Center's David Michel.

Image source: sunbeer.

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Posted on 3/08/11

Next Israeli-Lebanese war looms large

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian | Gulf News | July 2011

Issue:Competition over resources

Beirut is immersed in political squabbles while Tel Aviv is building international support on disputed sea borders

Israel is preparing for its fifth war against Lebanon, as it believes that Beirut is not entitled to offshore natural gas deposits, allegedly falling outside non-demarcated maritime borders. This wild assertion is advanced allegedly because the 2007 marine boundary negotiations between Israel and Cyprus on the one hand, and those between Beirut and Nicosia separately, delineated offshore lines.

Article source: Gulf News

Image source: portland general

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Posted on 20/07/11

Drought in east Africa the result of climate change and conflict

Felicity Lawrence | The Guardian | July 2011

Issues:Climate change, Competition over resources, Marginalisation

Aid agencies say that weather in the region has become more erratic and years of war leave populations especially vulnerable

Prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa is the immediate cause of the severe food crisis already affecting around 10 million people in parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. Rains have failed over two seasons, with a strong La Niña event having a dramatic impact across the east coast of Africa. Now this year's wet season has officially ended, there is little prospect of rain or relief before September.

Article source: The Guardian

Image source: Oxfam International

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Posted on 14/07/11

Selling Nature to Save Nature, and Ourselves

Stephen Leahy | Terraviva | July 2011

Issues:Climate change, Competition over resources, Marginalisation

Avoiding the coming catastrophic nexus of climate change, food, water and energy shortages, along with worsening poverty, requires a global technological overhaul involving investments of 1.9 trillion dollars each year for the next 40 years, said experts from the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) in Geneva Tuesday.

"The need for a technological revolution is both a development and existential imperative for civilisation," said Rob Vos, lead author of a new report, "The Great Green Technological Transformation". 

Article source: Terraviva

Image source: Paul Keller

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Posted on 6/07/11

Conflict Minerals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Aligning Trade and Security Interventions

Ruben de Koning | SIPRI | July 2011

Issues:Competition over resources, Global militarisation

Mineral resources have played a crucial role in fuelling protracted armed conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This Policy Paper examines the the prospects for and interactions between various trade- and security-related initiatives that are aimed at demilitarizing the supply chains of key minerals. It also describes the changing context in which such initiatives operate. Finally, it offers policy recommendations for how the Congolese Government and international actors can coordinate and strengthen their responses in order to break resource–conflict links in eastern DRC.

Article source: SIPRI

Image source: Tim Pearce, Los Gatos

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Posted on 6/07/11