It has become a trend of sorts to publish an assessment of the most recent scientific findings related to climate change in the run up to the next high level event of international climate negotiations. After Copenhagen 2009 the next such event is now scheduled for Paris at the end of 2015. Accordingly the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a timely report outlining that the effects of climate change are already occurring – all over the world. As Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, put it: “Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change.”
Consequently it seems more than appropriate to highlight the geopolitical dimension of climate change – as Geoff Dabelko did, one of the authors of a new chapter of the fifth assessment report on the relevance of climate change for human security. This focus of the IPCC is new and Geoff Dabelko, senior advisor to the Environmental Change and Security Programme (ECSP) of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. and director of environmental studies at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, underlines in his interview with the blog New Security Beat that no one should underestimate the vulnerability of developed countries. The high risks of climate change impacts for regions characterized by high degrees of poverty have already been a major driving force for international climate negotiations, so human security as such is not a new topic for IPCC assessments. However, with a high concentration of wealth and infrastructure in certain areas of the developed world, damage to even relatively small areas can be potentially devastating.
Based on the careful assessments of the authors of the human security chapter, IPCC considers for the first time in greater detail the potential threat of violent conflicts caused or exacerbated by climate change. The authors avoid very simplistic answers. In the past, discussions of the potential role of a changing climate for peace and stability have too often been dominated by alarmist notions of future climate wars that lacked a sound scientific base.
The discussion on the relevance of climate change on migration patterns and in turn on violent conflicts can help to illustrate this point: too often the relationship has been presented as obvious, and numbers on future climate refugees have been used without clearly stating their speculative nature. The IPCC projects with medium confidence that climate change over the 21st century will increase displacement of people. However, changes in migration patterns can also indicate an effective adaptation strategy. In addition, there is only low confidence in quantitative projections of changes in mobility, due to the “complex, multi-causal nature of migration”.
Another example is the potential role of climate change for national security policies: sea-level rise poses risks to the territorial integrity of small-island states and states with extensive coastlines. In addition, transboundary impacts on shared water resources or fish stocks can increase rivalry among states. But here again, adaptation through the strengthening of national and intergovernmental institutions can offer pathways for enhanced cooperation and for the management of these rivalries.
As a basis for climate diplomacy, the geopolitical narrative can offer some positive momentum. By clearly stating some of the remaining uncertainties of climate change – including those that impact foreign and security policy – it can facilitate a frank and open discussion going beyond some of the business as usual scientific battles in the past on how certain climate projections are or can be.
2019 has only just begun, but it is already hard to imagine that there will be other extreme weather events with disastrous consequences such as cyclone Idai happening again this year. In all likelihood, such events will continue to occur as 2019 rolls on. Idai is, once more, proof of how devastating and toxic the mix of climate change, extreme weather events and poverty can be: Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe – countries that rank low in human development but contribute very little to global greenhouse gas emissions – suffer from some of the worst impacts of climate change.
adelphi has relaunched its exhibition Environment, Conflict and Cooperation (ECC) Exhibition to illustrate how unprecedented environmental changes interact with social, political, and economic risks to exacerbate conflict. We invite you to explore our online exhibition and to learn more about urgent issues of our time: climate, energy, migration, extractives, food and water.
Climate security risks are, by all interpretations, a global threat. But when it comes to setting a political climate security agenda, a handful of countries stand out. In an interview with Climate Diplomacy, Michaela Spaeth, Director for Energy and Climate Policy at the German Federal Foreign Office, highlights some of Germany’s goals and challenges in forwarding the issue during its 2019-20 membership in the UN Security Council.
The Planetary Security Conference 2019, which concluded on 20 February, saw a number of workshops being held on the Sahel region and specifically Mali, one of the Conference’s three spotlight regions. These workshops examined the region’s climate-water-security risks as well as the #doable actions and solutions to address these issues.