Adaptation is not a solution: Loss of security and international order
in a world not focused on greenhouse gas mitigation
Abstract
With the advent
of the anthropocene, climate change is the central problem humans face with GHG
mitigation being the overarching solution.
However, policymakers tend to push mitigation efforts aside while
allowing adaptation efforts to take precedence.
This is especially common in the developed nations, especially the United States,
where it is believed a changing climate could be beneficial to agriculture and
trade. This disregards the possibility
for tipping points and dangerous climate change which would overstress the
international system creating perilous security situations that no country can
escape from. Central to this problem is
the current definition of environmental security, which is contested, and the
seriousness with which the idea is taken.
Defining environmental security accurately is important because how
people conceptualize a problem is based on the way it is thought of and the
contexts in which it is used. Some say
that since environmental security is not a direct threat to the sovereignty of
the state it does not deserve precedence over the economy or territorial
disputes as a cause of conflict. Adaptation is not a solution, however,
argues that the synergy created by the different simultaneous problems climate
change will bring necessitates it precedence over other security concerns. Agricultural problems, increased frequency of
natural disasters, health problems from new and spreading diseases, and the
subsequent economic stress will create expanding compound problems that will
stress the relationships between various nations and the IOs that have been
created within the last half century.
Without defining environmental security as its own discipline the
synergistic effects of the problems of climate change will not have the weight
necessary to make an impact on the field in a timely manner. As a result of the seriousness of climate
change, nations need to move away from a focus on adaptation, despite its
increasingly apparent need now, and begin to take GHG mitigation seriously.
Walking Backward
There has been a
tendency within the policymaking community, especially of the US, to focus on adapting to climate
change instead of reducing emissions.
This is ill-conceived logic since the nature of the climate is given
towards synergy and, as a result, tipping points. With this in mind, and in light of recent
discoveries in the Arctic hydrological system, dangerous or abrupt climate
change is a serious concern. Such
changes can wreak havoc on the climates we humans have lived with for the past
12,000 years. Strengthened and more frequent
natural disasters such as droughts, hurricanes, blizzards, and floods will
occur. As time goes by and the Earth
continues to warm such problems will create a synergistic effect on each other
increasing their impact on human systems.
With regards to abrupt climate change, there are not plans or the
materials in place to prevent the effects of the changes. Adaptation is meant to ameliorate a small
amount of change over a long period of time.
Abrupt climate change connotes the opposite, with consequences for
humanity an order of magnitude higher.
Generally when people have the choice between going homeless, starving,
dying, or raiding they choose to raid.
With problematic climate changes prevalent, conflict will become more prevalent. This is not inevitable
however. If climate change is recognized
for the serious and immediate problem it is and the world’s nations take
immediate action to drastically limit GHG emissions then small scale conflict
leading into ever larger conflict can be averted. Without such action future problems will
proliferate. In order to accomplish this
cooperation on a level not seen yet must occur though. Of course, this level of cooperation would
also be enough to avert the problems at the beginning stages of climate change. The inability for states to come to a
consensus on GHG mitigation now would point to our inability to solve a more
dangerous situation, i.e. once abrupt or dangerous climate change has already
happened.
The Eclipse of GHG Mitigation
With the closing
of the Durban Accord last December, the final opportunity for world leaders to
extend or establish a more stringent set of requirements for states signed onto
the Kyoto Protocol has passed (Hood 2011; Krukowska, 2011). Leaders in the US, a leader in carbon
emissions, have barely broached the subject of preventing carbon
emissions. Free market values have
trumped legislative restrictions and, as a result, emissions rates have not
fallen to the degree necessary to prevent warming. Trends in the Arctic are becoming worse, [with
ever increasing sea ice loss during the summer (Lindsay, 2009) and what may be
the disintegration of clathrates in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS)
(Shakhova, 2012)] lending to positive feedbacks within the climate system. These positive feedbacks could send the
climate through a series of tipping points with increasing speed that would
likely be irreversible and devastating for civilization. In the background, talk of adaptation seems
to be gaining in prominence; filling the void of what once had been debate over
the prevention of carbon emissions (Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task
Force, 2011; IBRD, 2010).
The Problem of Adaptation
Within recent
years, talk of adaptation to climate change has increased as the increasing level
of GHG emissions guarantees future climate change, due to a failure to enforce
stringent emissions cuts. For some,
adaptation may seem a new piece to the conversation; it has been the beginning
for many policy and decision-makers. For
example, in Climate Change 2001, the
Third Assessment Report (TAR) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), Chapter 18 delves into the ability for each region of the world
to adapt to climate change. According to
page 904, some areas of North America may see
net benefits as a result of climate change (McCarthy, 2001). No other region has a statement like that
made about it. This seems to be a
foolish attitude to take towards such a systemic and wide ranging problem. It flies in the face of the precautionary
principle and does not take into account the interconnectedness of social and
ecological systems.
As a result of
the conversation moving towards adaptation we have already lost the fight to
prevent climate change. The idea of
adaptation, and the centrality it occupies in the public psyche, leads to a
slippery slope in which adaptation measures take precedence over emissions
cuts. The painting of rosy pictures for
those who, with capital and the means, can ‘outlast’ others in a climate
sensitive world, is seen in international reports on the vulnerability of
different regions to climate change (McCarthy, 2001). This is simply a way of attempting to defer
the costs of climate change to the next generation.
Social vulnerability,
or the amount to which social and economic conditions are sensitive to climatic shifts,
seems to be viewed in terms of the amount of direct competition (for resources
and space) a nation will have as a result of the number of neighbors it has
(i.e. if there are a lot of countries with immigrants who can cross its borders
illegally stressing the society) and its economic and military strength. This disregards the truly devastating impact
dangerous climate change could have on advanced industrialized countries. Climate concerns for industrialized nations
are not limited to flooding in the Netherlands,
Florida, and New Orleans.
Disease, drought, and disrupted trade will affect every nation to some
degree. In the case of dangerous climate
change, nothing is for certain and all outcomes are bad. Security concerns between nations are being
pushed aside as concerns of ensuring a profitable outcome from climate change
become the centerpiece of the policies of scientifically advanced nations.
Dangerous & Abrupt Climate Change
Typically,
climate change is seen as a problem that will bring about additional stress
only with regards to situations that are already stressed or will be stressed
at the time of the climate changes. For
instance, Somalia has had a
long history as a failed state and has had intermittent wars between the
various factions that control the state and its neighbors, like Ethiopia. Were climatic shifts to happen it is believed
conflicts like this would worsen. Or if
some new conflict were to begin and a detrimental climate shift were to occur
in that area, again the crisis would deepen.
In a recent report from the IPCC, entitled Managing the Risks of
Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation or SREX,
all the scenarios for extreme events and disasters were set out for the end of
the 21st century and were based on information gathered by the end
of the 20th century (Field, 2012). (To clarify, the cut off date for new papers for the report was May 2011 but the report used the SRES as a basis for its climate scenarios. The SRES was published in 2001.)
There has been a whole decade of further research done since that
period. Any of the scenarios posed would
have 90 years for humans to react in some way.
The North Pole has almost achieved an ice free state within the last 5
years (The Tracker, 2011). Extreme
climate events involving the increased or sudden release of methane from
clathrates or permafrost were not included in the report. As a result, the most dangerous climate
events are not even mentioned in regards to whether adaptation is a probable
solution in those scenarios.
Such dangerous
climate change scenarios will indefinitely cause conflict in and of themselves
because of the rapidity with which they will change global dynamics (trade
networks, loss of military aid etc.) (Scheffran, 2011; Schubert, 2009). Many security scholars scoff at the idea of a
separate branch of peace and security studies deemed ‘environmental
security’. They argue that the
environment’s effect on security is no different than that of economics,
migration, or any other tertiary discipline which could drive a country into
war (Floyd, 2008). This is not true
because as an underlying variable separate from human choice and so-called
‘rational’ self-interest, the environment’s effect on conflict is much like a
wild card. The social consequences of
weather changes on the scale we are considering have received little research
in the academic community, especially in the case of dangerous climate change
and even less attention within policy-making circles (Brown, 2010). This may mainly be because of a lack of
empirical data one would need to use to accurately determine how climate
will change in the future. This need should not
be a stumbling block though. Understanding
the ways in which the climate has interacted with its different elements in the
past, observing what is happening to climate now, understanding the various
resource issues and traditional conflict hotspots of the present day, and tying
all those ideas together is sufficient for making predictions about the
possibilities the future holds. This
should give one a general idea on how to begin analyzing international politics
for the specific effects of climate change.
Climate Change and Conflict Primer
So, to even
begin the discussion on conflict and climate change one must have a background
on the security problems the world is likely to face. This overview will touch on many of the
issues and set up the rest of the paper’s case studies and extrapolations. From there it will delve into greater depth
on the possibilities for security problems to arise with regards to climate
change and whether fears of the decreased importance of GHG mitigation leading
to abrupt climate change are warranted or unwarranted.
The traditional
way of viewing climate related conflict is through the lens of resource
conflicts or immigration issues (Stern, 2009; Naude, 2010). For instance, two nations share access to a
lake or river. One of the nations
experiences a decrease in the amount of water it is receiving from another
source it is using, so it begins to draw upon the shared source more heavily. This depletes the source more quickly and in
turn causes stress on the neighboring nation, especially if the latter nation
is downstream. Water conflicts have been
few and far between within recorded history (Dinar, 2009) but in a time of
increased populations and increased frequency and levels of drought their
importance and severity with regards to conflict should become more important (Schwartz, 2003).
More to the
point, dangerous or abrupt climate change implies changes that happen quickly,
more quickly than infrastructure changes or current policy structures will be
able to handle (Field, 2012). Current
observations in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf have shown that there are
increased releases of methane than had previously been observed over the summer
of 2011 (Shakhova, 2012). This is
believed to be a worst case scenario with regards to climate change (Benton,
2003; Ryskin, 2003). Releases of
methane, with regards to this scale, are not included in emissions and climate
scenarios because such changes have not been believed possible for at least a couple
hundred years (Ryskin, 2003). Over 80%
of the world’s clathrates are located in the Arctic (Shakhova, 2012) with the
Arctic liable to warm by an average of 20°C
greater than the equator (Miller, 2010). With releases of methane in the ESAS,
where the majority of the methane is stored, temperatures in the rest of the Arctic will inevitably increase at an even greater rate
increasing the likelihood that the remaining clathrates will be dispersed as
well (Bailey, 2011). Such a scenario
guarantees a positive feedback in the Arctic,
dangerous climate change worldwide, and conflict between nations.
Since dangerous
climate change manifests quick changes that can not be easily adapted to, supply
chain problems will become inevitable and many of the resources we are
dependent on will be hard to come by. Such
supply chain problems will be the result of increases in natural disasters damaging
or ruining infrastructure necessary for mining or transport. This will result in limited supplies for resources
such as oil and natural gas. These may
be contested, especially in areas where there is already unrest, while nations
will at the same time be attempting to move away from these infrastructures
(Gleditsch, 1998). Sustainable systems
of energy are not in place to cover the world’s energy needs, including in the United States
(REN21, 2011). The main supplies of
energy which the US
will be able to supply for itself immediately will be shale oil, oil shale, and
possibly biofuels (Johnson, 2004). Biofuels
will run into increasing trouble as a fuel source because of changing growing
conditions, possibly limiting crop yields, and cutting into the national food
supply (Backlund, 2008). All of these
will increase the scale and likelihood of any conflict that arises from shifts
in climate, especially from abrupt change, to a greater degree than something
such as economic depression or ego bruising.
So, in
understanding that dangerous climate change is likely, or at least possible
beyond what is currently estimated and planned for, on a timescale that is not
being addressed currently, how will adaptation and international relations
relate to each other and what will the international scene look like? Will there be cooperation among nations
worried about the effects that climate change is having on the world? As I stated before, from the current posture
of the United States,
there is an attitude of ambivalence coming from policy matters and visible in
the literature on climate change adaptation.
This is even apparent in estimates of the impact of climate change from
the Third Assessment Report (TAR) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change released in 2001 (McCarty, 2001).
China on the other hand, while increasing the number of coal plants it
builds (Romm, 2012) and facing a myriad of environmental problems, (Chuanjiao,
2007; Jize, 2004) is also building its relationship with energy exporting
countries (WFES, 2012) and has some of the world’s largest alternative energies
sectors (Jing, 2012). These will be the
major players on the international stage undoubtedly (along with India, Brazil,
and possibly South Africa.)
The states with
fates that are less clear are the developing and middle-income countries. Questions as to the status of the European
Union (EU) must also be answered.
Reports such as the TAR influence perceptions on policymakers and the
public with regards to the feasibility of adaptation. TAR emphasizes the varying ability for
developing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America
to adapt to climate change. It does not
mention the possibility that some regions of developing countries could reap
net benefits from climate change though.
In light of the previous statement I made on net benefits arising for different regions in the US this seems to play towards the belief that with technology adaptation
may actually be profitable for countries like the US.
Such beliefs
about the US
disregard one crucial point however, how the climate is actually changing. One aspect that will likely undergo changes
is the Jet Stream. The Jet Stream is due
to slow down as the climate warms giving it a long wave-like pattern instead of
a pretty much straight/slightly wavy line. To the north of the Jet Stream is cold, while
to the south is warmth. Once the Jet
Stream slows these areas of cold and warmth will remain stationary for extended
periods of time causing the temperatures in those areas to remain above or
below normal for extended periods of time (Weird
winter, 2011). This is liable to
cause increased instances of drought some years and short planting seasons in
other years. The heat will also cause
increased water retention by the atmosphere leading greater amounts of
precipitation, accompanied by erosion and flooding. As a result, such optimistic assessments of
the potential for climate change to be beneficial are misguided.
In Europe, technical ability is also supposed to be able to
overcome the problems associated with climate change. According to the TAR though Europe’s
natural systems have been compromised due to overdevelopment of the land
(McCarthy, 2001). The concentration of
people on the continent has been too high without adequate ecological innovation.
Europe will likely face the same problem regarding the Jet Stream as the
United States. This, once again, makes
adaptation an untenable solution, especially in terms of agriculture, for
another region of the world.
European,
developing, and middle-income states will probably not be as highly affected as
those who rely on the sale of fossil fuels for most of their revenue. Russia’s economy relies almost
solely on carbon fuel exports (Yergin, 2011).
Areas such as the Middle East and Venezuela are likely to see civil
unrest in the case of a downturn in oil exports as a result of mitigation to
prevent climate change once a situation of abrupt climate change happens. (Supply lines may begin to be lost and
hopefully the world’s governments will feel that further emissions of GHGs are
detrimental to society.) Much of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela’s
economies and public sector programs are funded from oil revenues (Looney,
2004; Hammond,
2011). There
is a strong traditionalist Islamic movement within Saudi Arabia which could take hold
if oil funded social programs fail and, as a result, the royal family loses power
(Cordesman, 2011). In the case of Venezuela, Hugo
Chavez (the country’s all but dictator) maintains power through his social
programs as well (Norden, 2010). Without
oil exports bringing in capital the Venezuelan government may be toppled as
well.
One of the prime
areas for conflict due to climate change seems to be Sub-Saharan Africa, as it
is already rife with problems. Drought
has been a major problem in states bordering the Sahara and Sahel, with
uncertainty as to whether the Sahel or Sahara
is expanding or receding (Godoy, 2011).
The 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa exacerbated tensions in the area
while offering an opportunity for Kenyan, Ethiopian, and African Union forces
to attack al-Shabaab, an Islamic terrorist organization, in Somalia
(Ibrahim, 2012). The influx of Somali refugees into already
crowded camps in Kenya
has exacerbated ethnic tensions in the country and led to increased conflicts
between the various populations.
Problems of police abuse on the one hand (Simpson, 2010) and arms
smuggling on the other have only increased the region’s troubles (Sipus, 2011).
Food supply is
another problem that may result in additional conflict. Good land may not be something every nation
will have as climate change advances.
Ranges in which crops can be grown will change in a non-linear or
unpredictable manner along with much of the other ecosystems in the world
(Araujo, 2007). Therefore food supply
around the world may become very tenuous and reliant more upon an understanding
of the intricacies of ecosystem relationships than modern agricultural methods.
The Need for an Independent Environmental Security Discipline
In light of the problems visited upon us
by climate change there needs to be a new international security discipline
created that is centered on climate change.
The problems of climate change create synergies between themselves that
have not been fully explored. To
decipher and analyze these problems effectively, interdisciplinary methods must
be brought to bear on the issues in order to fully decipher all the possible
problems that may arise and their solutions.
Professionals in climate science, public policy, civil engineering,
alternative energy technologies, development, health sciences, and security
(inter- and intranational) must come together in close partnership,
intertwining their knowledge to mitigate the problems that climate change could
visit upon us. Problems arising from
increased sea levels, increased and decreased precipitation (or alternating
between the two), loss of biodiversity and the shifting of plant and animal
habitats, and the shift of disease habitats and the subsequent risks to human
health and agriculture must all be considered through a number of
disciplines. For instance, shifting
climate may change the habitat of a known disease vector, (Rohr, 2011) causing
increased stress on plant populations not commonly in contact with the disease,
this causes a decline in the plant’s population (let us say it is a staple crop
like rice), which puts stress on the areas food supply, which leads to
increased levels of hunger, which stresses an already stressed health system
(because of shifting habitats for other diseases which affect humans), this
causes large-scale migration out of the area into neighboring areas which may
be encountering their own climate-related problems, the transportation
infrastructure becomes stressed and degraded in the process, natural resources
are degraded because of the population fluctuation, and conflict arises where
aid and diplomacy can not solve people’s problems. This long run-on sentence may seem like a
far-fetched example of what climate change could do to a region, but keep in
mind climate change is a world-wide phenomena.
The problem is that we haven’t even covered issues with trade and supply
chain disruption, increased frequency of natural disasters (with different
types of disaster, i.e. fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons, and
blizzards), or the possible economic problems that would arise from having to
switch energy infrastructure after abrupt shift had begun. While some regions may do better than others,
no region is likely to escape change.
This means world-wide instability, not regional/contained
instability. The extent of the
instability may be different for each region and the outcome may be different
(positive or negative) but there will be change. This type of global thinking is necessary to
understand the worldwide synergistic problems that would befall the world in
the face of climate change. That
argument is central to the success of environmental security as a discipline
and the prevention of armed conflict as a result of environmental degradation.
We are learning
that ecosystems worldwide and the entire climate system are quite
interconnected. Gases/emissions released
in the tropics can travel to the poles and then stay there for decades becoming
concentrated in that environment. The
impacts we have on our environments now are not sequestered regionally. They affect everyone and everything in
concert.
This needs to be
the lengthy starting point for understanding the need for a new understanding
of the effect of the environment on security.
As was said before, synergy is the hallmark of the environmental
security discipline. Our institutions
have a hard enough time figuring out development issues in impoverished nations
or working together to deal with our current economic crisis. Dealing with all of these problems occurring
at once is not something our political and social systems have been made to
handle. With guaranteed climate change
coming as a result of the level of GHGs already in the atmosphere
adaptation measures will have to be made even if it should not have been or be
the primary focus of policymakers. Our
political and social systems have been made for creation and prosperity not endurance. Individuals who specialize in the study of
environmental conflict would begin piecing the complex interrelation of natural and social systems together to
create a tapestry of potential scenarios humanity would have to deal with in
the face of climate change.
The Face of Climate Change
In 2003, Peter
Schwartz and Doug Randall wrote an article on the effect abrupt climate change
could have on the world’s social and political systems. The possible event they chose to analyze was the
shutdown of the North Atlantic Oscillation due to increased freshwater melt
from glaciers in Greenland. Such an occurrence would cut off the flow of
warm water coming from the tropics, causing temperatures in Europe and parts of
North America to drop, possibly contributing to a minor ice age in Europe (Schwartz, 2003).
This would cause great stress on European agricultural systems as well
as its infrastructure and social systems in general.
Schwartz and
Randall go on to describe the historic significance of carrying capacity in
humanity’s numerous conflicts and wars.
According to An Abrupt Climate
Change Scenario throughout history wars over resources have been common
when resources are low. When “there is a
choice between starving and raiding, humans raid”…and “25% of a population’s
males die when war breaks out” (Schwartz, 2003). From this it is obvious that climate change
may not initially result in state-sponsored violence but initiated by suffering
members of the polity. The reason the
conflict will be primarily precipitated outside the government will be
explained later on in the section on Somalia. For instance, if there is environmental
degradation happening to the extent that people can not buy food, with IOs and
NGOs not providing sufficient aid to prevent starvation, then the capital and
strength of those people can only last so long.
Without food people will die and without capital weapons can not be
bought. So, while reduction in a
region’s carrying capacity may make conflict inevitable the speed and ferocity
with which the change happens will determine the afflicted population’s ability
gather their selves together to wage a war or start and maintain a conflict (Read,
2003).
Abrupt Climate Change?
Which brings us
to the question of abrupt climate change and whether the shut down of the North
Atlantic Oscillation is the most worrisome potential danger. It is the author’s contention that it is
neither the most dangerous nor the most likely.
While it is definitely a future possibility with the continued
degradation of the Greenland ice sheet, it has
more of regional effect than some other potential abrupt change scenarios. At this time I would turn the reader’s
attention to the aforementioned East Siberian Arctic Shelf (Shakhova, 2012). Over the summer of 2012, elevated out gassing
of methane was discovered with plumes a kilometer in diameter. This points to the potential release of
clathrates from the Shelf. The effect of
this can be alluded to through study of the Permian extinction event.
The Permian
extinction occurred 252 million years ago and was the largest extinction within
the last 550 million years (Shen, 2011).
During this period, 96% of all marine life (Benton, 2003) and 70% of terrestrial
vertebrate species became extinct (Sahney, 2008). It is also the only known mass extinction of insects
(Labandeira, 1993). This is important
because the release of methane from clathrates has been implicated as an
important cause of the extinction. Some
have argued for a minor role of clathrates during the extinction period because
modern stores of methane in marine sediments are only estimated to be 500-2500
Gt, not the previously assumed 10,000 Gt, which would only be able to make the
changes recorded during the Permian on a scale >10,000 years (Retellack,
2008). This is too long for the Permian
event which was much quicker. However,
assuming that marine methane sediments were comparable to today’s amounts would
be a mistake. Greater sedimentation
rates could be described by the unique environment of the Permian-Triassic
period (Shen, 2011).
Results of Abrupt Change
From this one
can determine that while a current release of methane from clathrates would not
be as damaging as the Permian period, it would have massive effects on the
ecosystems of Earth. Wildfires raged
during the period across the world and parts of the oceans became anoxic (devoid of
oxygen) (Benton,
2003). The effects of this can be seen
in ecosystems today. While the
occasional die off of forest in small amounts is necessary for the prevention
of large scale wildfires (van Wagner, 2012) increasingly dry or drought
conditions can cause annual wildfires, such as those seen in the western United States. In such conditions, once an area burns it
becomes increasingly likely it will catch fire once again within a shorter timeframe
because of decreased moisture in the ecosystem and its surroundings. Soil erosion would also inhibit the regrowth
of the forest creating widespread loss of habitat increasing the rate of
species extinction.
Wildfire in the US
costs an estimated $50 billion to $100 billion every year. Individuals are forced to leave their homes,
leading to migration issues (Zybach, 2011).
Pollution and the long-term degradation of the land is a continuing
problem. This will become an issue in
many drought affected areas. As a result,
drought and aridity do not only cause poor conditions for the growth of crops,
they may inhibit it altogether. Loss of
top soil, which is already a problem, would further inhibit agriculture making
less precipitation even more of a problem.
Aquifers and lakes would have to be tapped at a greater rate depleting
fresh water reserves quicker. Another
possibility is that in some areas increased heat will allow the atmosphere to
hold more water causing heavier precipitation.
This could lead to increased soil runoff and even poorer growing
conditions.
In order to have
wildfires spanning the globe, drought conditions would have to be systemic, which
means drought and worldwide water shortages.
Such conditions would inevitably limit food production to an extent that
hasn’t been seen thus far. Famine at
that level would interrupt international supply chains and as said before, loss
of carrying capacity leads to war.
Somalia
The ability for
persistent ecological stress to induce conflict can easily be seen in the case
of Somalia. Two of the problems associated with rising
temperatures and changing climates are the expansion of the Sahara
and the reduction of the West African Monsoon.
Similar conditions in the Horn of Africa could portend a possible future
scenario should the thermohaline circulation of the North Atlantic Oscillation
shut down. Intermittent drought
conditions have been seen in the Horn for a couple of decades. In 2011 renewed drought struck Somalia, Ethiopia,
and Kenya with famine being
declared in Somalia
(UNHCR, 2011). Somalia is a
nation without a state. There is no
formal government that can claim legitimate sovereignty over the country. A strictly Islamist terrorist organization
with ties to al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, controlled a substantial portion of the
southwestern part of the country. This
area borders Ethiopia and is
not far from Kenya.
With the
increase in drought conditions, Kenya,
and subsequently Ethiopia
and the African Union, saw it as the perfect time to kick al-Shabaab out of Somalia. In late 2011, hostilities between
al-Shabaab and its neighbors heightened, sending masses of refugees fleeing not
only the famine but also the fighting (Garvelink, 2012). The destination for most of these refugees
was the Dadaab refugee complex, the largest refugee camp complex in the world
located in Dadaab, Kenya. Dadaab was not built to hold the amount of
refugees that arrived.
This was not the
first time drought had sent Somali refugees over the border into Kenya. In the early 1990s the Dadaab camps had been
built to house the earlier influx. They
had become the largest camps in the world as a result of immigrants arriving
from conflict in Southern Sudan and drought and conflict in Somalia. Dadaab is made up of 3 different camps: Ifo 2
(the renovated Ifo camp built to withstand flooding), Hagadera, and
Dagahaley. The camps were built to house
90,000 people but during the height of the crisis at least 440,000 individuals
were housed in them (UNOCHA, 2011).
This severely reduced the carrying capacity for the area.
This can be
inferred from a number of facts.
Firstly, there is no agriculture that takes place within the camps. The raising of livestock is limited to goats. Most of the refugees from Somalia were goat herders
however. Only small amounts of food can
be grown if any is grown at all. Most
planting is done as ground cover to reduce the amount of dust the winds pick up
(Montclos, 2000). Firewood is also
scarce. The women of the camps will
daily travel greater than a mile outside the camps to collect the
firewood. The distance grows annually
and there is no effort that can easily be made to reforest the area. In fact, the place the camps are situated in
was chosen by the Kenyan government for its uselessness. The Kenyan government was afraid “the
refugees might become settled in valuable areas of the country, especially the
highlands,” therefore the refugees are restricted to living in the camps which
are located in a desert.
This stress has
brought conflict outside of the war in Somalia with it. On entry into Kenya, smugglers are routinely
pulled over and the refugees are extorted for all their money. Refugees are then frequently asked to step
out of the car with the men being separated from the women. The men may be assaulted while the women are
taken away to be beaten and/or raped.
The Somali men are commonly accused of being al-Shabaab loyalists or
members as they are being beaten. Afterwards,
some men and women may be held for ransom at the overpopulated Garissa jail or
police station. Occasionally children
are even held for ransom in this manner.
Their family members are then forced to pull together what little money
they have for the release of their relative.
Outside of such abuse, women who gather wood on the outskirts of the camp
are regularly raped. Women must still
collect the wood because if men were to do it they would likely be killed.
In light of all
of this there has grown to be a strong al-Shabaab and Somali pirate influence
in the camps. Outside the cafes, pirates
can be seen conversing openly and gathering regularly. Members of al-Shabaab are generally known
throughout the community though their identities are rarely known outside of the
Somali community. Arms smuggling and
money laundering within Kenya
has grown as a result. Since there was
already a large Somali community within Kenya before the camps were built
movement within the country is easier than it may otherwise be. As a result, the Kenyan government
occasionally raids Somali neighborhoods in Kenya arresting large amounts of Somalis to
find terrorists.
Backlash by the
Somali groups has begun as a result.
Tensions were high before the Kenyan excursion into Somalia. On November 5, 2011 a police vehicle
escorting a UN convoy struck a landmine in Hagadera Camp. The landmine failed to detonate however
(Ombati, 2010). Al-Shabaab presence
within the camps, police brutality and complacence, and sexual abuse have all
gone up (Shinn, 2012). Since the Kenyan
entry into Somalia
al-Shabaab sympathizers within the camps have increased there attacks on Kenyan
authorities. On July 1, Kenyan
authorities killed 2 refugees and injured 12 others in an attempt to disperse a
crowd of protesters attempting to prevent the demolition of illegal structures
built around a food distribution center (Nyabera, 2011). On October 14, 2011 two Spanish aid workers
from Medicins Sans Frontieres were kidnapped from the camp and taken to Somalia (York,
2011). In November two roadside bomb
attacks on police convoys occurred. In
one 2 officers and two security personnel were injured and in the other the
landmine failed to detonate (Yussuf, 2011). In December a police officer was killed by a
roadside bomb near the camp while three others were injured. Later in the month a similar attack occurred
once more, this time injuring two officers and killing another (OPS, 2011).
This drought has
left the region a hotbed of conflict where things had already been in a
terrible condition. The Somali refugees
were initially forced to stay within the borders of the camps because the
Kenyan government had become unable to deal with them. Responsibility for the refugees had already
been given to UNHCR and the Kenyan government was withdrawing from refugee
affairs. More recently Kenya has repeatedly
threatened to close its border to refugees, leaving them in the middle of a
war zone facing famine.
Conflict such as
this is likely to pop up in other regions as climate change progresses. Adaptation strategies will not prevent
climate change from becoming more severe and as droughts spread nations will
become less able to deal with intrusive rogue elements; they will have to focus
on the needs of their own people. For
instance, piracy of ships near the Somalian coast may become harder to deal
with once climate change creates poor conditions for Somalia’s
neighbors or the United
States.
These growing separate conflicts (growing themselves and in number
around the world) will create increasing instability in the world system. Less stability may lead to greater insulation
or it could bring about increased efforts to work in tandem to minimize
conflict. From what we have seen with
regards to mitigation efforts however, working together to solve such problems
is not the general default option for diplomacy. Realism seems to dominate, with developing
and developed countries in an endless stalemate and neither giving ground. This has led us into the situation we are in, with emissions needing to be stabilized by 2015 for
the chance of dangerous climate not to grow.
Small Scale Conflict
Kenya’s
situation illuminates the possibility for small insurgencies to begin to form
as a result of climatic degradation. In
this situation only Somalia
is affected by the famine. However
ethnic turmoil and the ability to supply the refugees with the supplies they
need has already disintegrated after less than a year. Housing and infrastructure in the camps is
inadequate and the host government is hostile to the refugees. Remember this is with only one of the nations
involved having famine declared for it.
While there is drought in Ethiopia
and Kenya,
the situation is not as bad. Since there
is drought though it is possible the problem could become even worse if the
drought lingers in Kenya or Ethiopia. That is where the real problems start; when
two countries already in conflict begin to both be in dire straits. As the world warms this may become a more
untenable situation with aid flows decreasing as fewer countries escape the
problems climate change brings with it.
Small scale
conflict is not something to be shrugged off.
Movements in Columbia, Chechnya, Palestine,
Afghanistan, and Mexico
have fought their governments intermittently for decades. Palestinian terrorists/soldiers are legendary
for having less equipment and fewer individuals while sustaining an armed
rebellion. The FARC in Columbia
has carried out a successful insurgency against the Bogota government for nearly 50 years. Granted none of these movements are based
around resource scarcity, though the Palestinian uprising is as much about
adequate food and land as political freedom.
Such small scale conflict is likely to become more prevalent in a world
with changing climates.
Soil Degradation and Marine Ecosystems
Increased
erosion of soils also means increased organic matter and sedimentation in run
off, making its way to rivers, and eventually out to the ocean. From this will come patterns of anoxia and
hypoxia as was seen during the Permian extinction event, though not at that
scale. Hypoxia is where the water is
depleted of oxygen, saturation of between 1-30% oxygen, while anoxia is the
complete depletion of oxygen. Most fish
can not live in a hypoxic environment. As
a result a hypoxic environment will clear the area of fish. Periods of hypoxia
can already be seen at regular intervals in the outlets of particular
rivers. This is mainly caused by run off
from soil, pesticides and fertilizers into gulfs, seas, or oceans. The build up of organic matter at the mouth
of the river causes an algal bloom, with the decaying organic matter left from
it depleting the water column of oxygen as it sinks. This causes death and stress to life on the
sea floor where the hypoxic event takes place (USGS, 2010).
With the
increased use of pesticides and fertilizers to combat disease and maintain
plant health, as a result of depleted soils, hypoxic events will become greater
in size. Currently there is an annual
hypoxic event off the coast of Louisiana at
the mouth of the Mississippi. This event causes definite losses to the
local fishing industry. One study has
estimated the “loss of up to 25% of shrimp habitat on the Louisiana shelf. The commercial fishing industry in the Gulf
is one of the most valuable fisheries in the country, with an annual value of
over $650 million, and Brown shrimp is one of the most valuable of those fish
stocks” (Babcock, 2008). Every year a
dead zone the size of Massachusetts
is created. This can have a negative
effect of the fishing and seafood industries of the area. In Hong Kong
in 1998 90% of the city’s fish farm stock was wiped out due to an algal
bloom. The total loss came to about USD
$40 million (Selman, 2008). Currently
hypoxic areas are only prevalent on the shorelines of Western countries because
that is where fertilizer and pesticide consumption is localized. If an abrupt climate change event on the
scale of clathrate release from the ESAS happens however hypoxia may not be a
niche event anymore.
Taking this into
consideration it is worthwhile to note that there has been conflict over the
use and depletion of fisheries as well.
In Nicaragua, during
the rule of the Sandanistas, the socialist government ran afoul of the
indigenous people who had been fishing off the coast of Nicaragua for generations. In an attempt to implement equal distribution
of land in congruence with their economic plans the Sandanistas began to use
what had been traditionally only used by the indigenous Miskitos (Homer-Dixon,
1999). This created artificial scarcity
and, as noted before, armed conflict ensued (Dennis, 1993). Miskitos were forced from their homes and
relocated.
From this one
may draw the conclusion that increasing occurrence of hypoxic events worldwide
could likely lead to conflict between groups competing for the same
resources. Remember that hypoxia was one
of the problems that occurred during the Permian extinction. Ocean wide hypoxia is not as likely though
due to decreased contemporary levels of methane hydrate in ocean sediment
versus the late Permian. Less
extensive hypoxic events would still be likely though. The increase would be not only be evident for
developed nations either, where hypoxia is concentrated currently, but also
developing nations where there hasn’t been pollution of coastal waters with
organic material for a long enough time.
Such a collapse could only add to whatever other tension is already
being created from other climate related problems.
The Scenario
The world I’ve
been laying out thus far is one of competition for necessary resources as the
ability to produce for one’s self is lost.
The starting point is in the Arctic system with the release of
clathrates from the ESAS (Shakhova, 2012) and the discovery of methane seeping
from fissures between glaciers (IPF, 2012).
From there, warming increases exponentially, causing greater warming at
the poles. The glaciers in Greenland, West Antarctica, etc. begin to disintegrate more quickly
causing sea levels to rise. The
increased freshwater levels from Greenland would
lower the density levels of the water for the surrounding ocean bringing the pump
that runs the North Atlantic Oscillation NAO to a halt. This decreases the amount of heat being
transferred from the tropics to Europe and parts of eastern North
America. The West African
Monsoon loses its potency with the halt of the NAO and as a result the Sahara begins to advance quicker than before.
Policymakers are
not prepared for changes of this magnitude.
Normal estimates for the level of sea rise come in at 18 to 59 cm from
this past decade to 2090 according to the IPCC’s AR4. Other studies, taking into account
accelerated melt from West Antarctica and Greenland, come to the conclusion
that a 134 cm rise in sea level is more probable (Rahmstorf, 2010).
The Explanation
Global warming
or climate change (whatever you want to call it) is already in the books. This paper is not about preventing climate
change from happening. The point I want
to drive home is that we as a civilization or species can not stop doing the
hard work it will take to prevent the climate from running away on us. Our policymakers have given up on the climate
negotiations process long after giving up was an option and before they had
tried in the first place. What we need
to understand is that adaptation is not an option. Even if large amounts of methane are not
released from the Arctic we are not aware of
everything that drives our climate system.
Climate scientists warn that we should be following the precautionary
principle, taking the safest way out of a problem (or away from a problem) instead
of the most expedient.
This does not
mean adaptation is not something that we need to be planning for or
implementing. If methane venting from
the Arctic is a serious problem then we will
inevitably have to plan ways by which we can maintain our civilization while
the climate shifts. Adaptation will not
prevent the worst problems associated with climate change though. It can not decrease the problems that will
happen or inhibit chain reactions or synergy from building. The only thing that can do that is preventing
additional energy from entering into the climate system by ceasing the burning
of fossil fuels.
In order to
understand how climate change is being prepared for outside of efforts like the
Kyoto Protocol we can look at the various national adaptation plans that are
being put together. The Interagency
Climate Change Adaptation Task Force is an interdisciplinary body tasked with
drawing together a comprehensive view on how adaptation measures can be
implemented to ameliorate the problems of climate change. To deal with wildfires, San Juan Public Lands,
which covers more than 2.5 million acres, has developed a drought vulnerability model, carbon
storage map, an alpine monitoring program, and projections of future
temperature and precipitation patterns. These are supposed to ensure vegetation for
grazing remains available and help the land managers decide what types of
trees need to be planted for resistance against drought, fire, and pests
(Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, 2011).
As was stated
before wildfires were an important piece of the Permian extinction. Therefore fire prevention should be a
priority with determining adaptive capacity and resilience. In the case of clathrate release though such
measures could only help for so long.
After a particular point in time drought would affect even drought
resistant plants. For this reason, such
problems need to taken into account.
Conclusion
Synergistic
relationships in the climate system will bring all these problems together
simultaneously creating more problems than each one would on its own. Each individual problem causes enough damage
on its own with coping and recovery always a hassle. As illustrated through Somalia and Nicaragua, environmental scarcity
(whether natural or artificial) can engender conflict. Humans will raid other groups before starving
to death. Wars have been started over
much less than that before. During the
last half century humanity has had a great period of abundance. This period was one of the most peaceful in
human history. With climate change our
challenges and peaceful nature will shift once more if safeguards are not put
in place. Emissions need to be cut
now. Adaptation is not an option it is a
poor back up plan, necessary as it may be.
Current adaptation measures are not sufficient to deal with the
synergies created by an abrupt climate shift.
While many believe that an abrupt climate shift would most likely be
decades away or highly unlikely there are signs now that one is beginning. It must be stopped or the warming that is
already guaranteed will be much worse than expected.
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COP – Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC
GHG – greenhouse gas
IO – international organization
IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
SREX – Special Report on Extreme Events from the IPCC in 2012
SRES – Special Report on Emissions Scenarios from the IPCC in 2000
TAR – Third Assessment Report from the IPCC in 2001
UNFCCC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNFCCC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
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