AFRICA: Climate Change ‘is a Security Issue’
CAPE TOWN, Aug 28 (IPS) – Africa is the canary in the mine of global security, as climate change threatens to redraw the maps of the continent and the world.
A shift in global climate will reshape coastlines, alter disease prevalence, change where rain falls, and alter where people can find water, grow food and live, says Oli Brown, of the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s (IISD). This could force communities and nations into conflict as they struggle to access resources or are forced into “distressed” migration.
“Africa is the first continent to fully feel the effect of climate change on political and economic stability (because of) its history of ethnic, resource and political conflict, and its reliance on climate sensitive sectors like rain fed agriculture”, said Brown during a conference this month in Cape Town, which explored the relationship between climate change, resources and migration as a possible source of conflict on the continent.
But he cautioned against the assumption that African communities will automatically fight under conditions of stress. “We’ve seen around the region and the world that conditions of stress create conflict in some areas but not in others.”
In the 1980s, debate around climate change hinged on concerns about environmental degradation. This later evolved into concern over energy and economics as countries began to grapple with how to slow the atmospheric pollution that was driving the problem. But, more recently, the debate has centred on broader concerns around national and regional security as climate change threatens to undermine international peace and stability.
Brown said that climate change should not be seen as a stand-alone problem but rather as one that threatens to amplify existing social and environmental pressures which drive human conflict, including desertification, water scarcity, land degradation and fisheries depletion. These converging crises are expected to reverse development trends across Africa, the continent regarded as one of the most vulnerable to the fallout of climatic shifts.
The elevation of climate change debate on the back of national security concerns is politically motivated, in part because of the need to inject a greater sense of urgency into global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“If environment ministers talk about climate change, it’s forgotten. If energy ministers or trade ministers talk about it, it gets a bit of attention. But the people who talk about security issues are prime ministers and presidents,” said Brown. “Talking about climate change in security terms raises it to the realm of high politics.”
Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim, South Africa’s Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, agreed that climate change was fast becoming one of the greatest global threats to stability, and that African needed strong early warning systems to help prevent future conflicts.
