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Climate and Conflict: a Double Disaster for the Poorest People
A special approach for fragile states
While world leaders have left Copenhagen with a totally inadequate “climate agreement”, many glaciers in the Himalayas are melting, and many Africans face rising temperatures and increasing droughts. There is often insufficient knowledge and capacity to tackle these major problems. For countries involved in a civil war or those slowly recovering from a conflict situation, a double disaster is looming.
In the Dutch newspaper Trouw (January 6th, 2010) Mark van Dorp and Eric van de Giessen plead for a special approach for such fragile states like Sudan and Afghanistan, offering people in those countries more protection to climate change. This will prevent them from being hit by a double disaster.
At the climate summit in Copenhagen, rich countries have pledged 30 billion dollar – mounting to 100 billion per year in 2020 – to help developing countries adapt to the negative effects of climate change. Governments of developing countries can use these funds for building dams or for training farmers in growing more drought-resistant crops, for instance.
However, in countries involved in civil war these funds will probably not be spent well and wisely. Democratic principles, as adopted in many other countries in the world, do not function in fragile states as these governments are often not capable, nor willing, to protect the most vulnerable people. Other, more innovative ways have to be found, therefore, to tackle climate change in fragile states.
The billions of dollars that have been pledged in Copenhagen for adaptation to climate change should be spent efficiently, flexibly and transparently benefiting as much as possible from local organizations, knowledge and experiences.
A large part of it should be spent through humanitarian organizations, grassroots organizations as well as through churches or religious groups. These are often the only functioning institutional channels in these fragile states. Only by applying unusual and innovative approaches, people can avoid being hit by a double disaster of climate and conflict.
Mark van Dorp is a free-lance environmental economist and founder of consultancy firm DUVILLA. Eric van de Giessen is a human geographer, working at the Institute for Environmental Security.
Photograph: Piet Wit, CIMIC Operation (Civil-Military Cooperation), Uruzgan, Afghanistan 2007.
Delivering Climate Security: What the Security Community needs from a global climate regime
IES taking part in COP 15 Side Event
17 December 2009
On 17 December, the IES took part in a side event organised jointly with E3G, Chatham House and the Energy and Security Initiative of Brookings. The panel, involving leading climate security experts, sought to explore the impacts of climate change on national security and how the global climate regime can address this threat.
In recent years, the scientific community has expressed growing concerns over the security implications of climate change and its major long-term planetary environmental consequences. However, these possibilities are no longer a fear for the distant future.
Speaking at a side event on Climate Change and International Security organised by the Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Maj Gen (ret) Muniruzzaman, member of the CCTM Military Advisory Council, explained that, “Climate change is not just a threat multiplier, but also a threat generator.”
Maj Gen Muniruzzaman was asked to express his opinion on this issue with specific examples from the Bangladeshi perspective. Phenomena like rise of the sea level, loss of agricultural land, deforestation, loss of biodiversity and soil erosion will fashion massive changes to Bangladesh’s natural environment. Millions of people will progressively lose their livelihoods and will be forced to flee their country. Migrants are expected to move across the Indian border, with the risk of triggering tensions over land. Unless these questions are properly addressed, these tensions could degenerate into regional and international conflicts.
CCTM Project | CCIS Programme | More information on the 17 December event | More information on the Danish Ministry event
New studies stress urgency of environmental security danger from Glacial Melt at the Third Pole
Three new studies have confirmed both the reality and the potential for disaster of Glacial Melt in the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Tibetan Plateau
16 December 2009
Professor Geoffrey Boulton of the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh made a joint presentation with Tom Spencer of the IES on 10th November at a seminar organised by the Royal Society and Chatham House. Professor Boulton demonstrated the relationship between the Indian Monsoon and the snow field. He presented new data showing that 80-85% of the Ganges dry season flow is the result of ice and snow melt. His figures showed that there had been an 11% reduction in dry season flow in the last thirty years. He further presented data showing how the ice fields were retreating to ever higher levels in Nepal.
On the 7th December Nirj Deva, MEP, Vice President of the Development Committee of the European Parliament convened the first of a series of European Parliament seminars on the Challenges of Glacial Melt. The programme included a videoed interview with Professor Jean-Pascal Van Ypersele, Vice Chair of the IPCC who stressed the role of Black Carbon in accelerating the melting of the glaciers. Ambassadors from Bangladesh and Nepal underlined the urgency which their governments attached to this issue. Senior diplomats from China and India took part in the discussion. Three members of WWF Nepal then made a presentation on the Impact of Glacial Melt on their country.
Two reports issued this week in Copenhagen further stressed the urgency of the situation.
UNEP, ICIMOD (The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development) and CICERO (the Center for International Climate & Environmental Research) presented recent research based on five field teams working in China, India, Pakistan and Nepal. This stressed that the people of the region faced “either too much or too little water in the Himalayas” . The Report underlines the dangers of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFS) capable of destroying lives and infrastructure for up to one hundred kilometers downstream.
Perhaps most worryingly of all, a new modelling study from NASA confirms the contribution of Black Carbon and dust to the warming of the Third Pole. William Law, Head of Atmospheric Sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center confirmed that an “elevated heat pump, driven by airborne dust and soot particles, is fuelling the loss of ice”. “Sooty Black Carbon travels east along wind currents latched to dust – its agent of transport – and become trapped in the air against Himalayan foothills. The particle’s dark color absorbs solar radiation, creating a layer of warm air from the surface that rises to higher altitudes above the mountain ranges to become a major catalyst of glacier and snow melt”.
Meanwhile, Jairam Ramesh, the Indian Minister for Environment and Forests, was publicly worrying that he might get a “Fossil of the Day” award because of the continued state of denial about Glacial Melt by some of his countrymen. A recent paper by his Ministry, describing itself as a State of the Art Review, did not consider a single peer-reviewed journal more recent than 1980. The Nepalese Government on the other hand went so far as to hold a Cabinet meeting at the foot of Mount Everest in order to draw attention to the damage which has already occurred from Glacial Melt.
Selection from Geoffrey Boulton\'s presentation
Climate Change Issues in the Third Pole
MEP and diplomats bring Himalayan Glaciers to the forefront.
8 December 2009
On 7 December, IES Vice-Chairman Tom Spencer took part in a roundtable on ‘Climate Change Issues in the Third Pole’ organised by British MEP Deva Nirj in Brussels. The meeting intended to assess the implications of the melting Himalayan glaciers on South and and Central Asia.
During his presentation, Tom Spencer emphasised the need for political attention on the Himalayas because it is this region that best demonstrates the visible effects of climate change. He said, “There is nothing more sensitive than the loss of water in this region”.
Moreover, a short video of Prof. J-P Van Ypersele, Vice-Chair of the IPCC underlined that one of the main causes of this glacial melt could be attributed to the massive emissions of black carbon which dramatically reduce the ‘albedo effect’, when deposited on snow and ice.
The melting of glaciers is an ongoing phenomenon that is accelerating rapidly and will have massive consequences for the region; altered dimensions of great river basins, disruption of the common hydro-electric power schemes and dramatic decrease in the availability of summer melt water, potentially driving millions of people off their land.
Participation at this event was varied, from representatives of the Asian countries of China, India, Bangladesh and Nepal, NGOs like EUROSTEP and WWF, the UNEP, EIB to those of the European Commission.
Out of such and other recommendations came the proposal for a plan of regional cooperation based on shared problems to deal with black carbon pollution and glacial melt.
At the same time it was agreed that the problem needed to be handled globally as the melting of Himalayan glaciers could destabilise the entire region and have major implications for international security.
Glacial Melt at the Third Pole - Tom Spencer
The Hague Environmental Law Facility
2 December 2009
Following the proposals of the feasibility study carried out by the T.M.C. Asser Institute and the IES presented in May 2009, the two project partners decided to take the next step in the set up of The Hague Environmental Law Facility (HELF).
One of the most pressing issues in international environmental law and its defining elements, the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), is compliance and enforcement. To address this lack, which persists since the launch of UNEPs Environmental Law Program (Montevideo Program) in 1982, the IES and the T.M.C. Asser Institute are envisaging an integrated approach with various applications.
The use of the latest remote sensing technologies in partnership with the GMES program of the European Union and a CSR-component involving the private sector are credible means for settling environmental disputes and increase the capacity of governments to comply with the respective MEAs. The training component conducted by organisations based in The Hague will be directed to civil servants, diplomats, enforcing agencies and judiciary actors to improve implementation and education on existing and latest developments in international environmental law.
IES legal advisor Serge Bronkhorst sees a lot of potential in the facility: “Apart from States addressing the issues at the interstate level, there are many others injured or so called interested (non-state) parties involved seeking redress, restoration or compensation for damage resulting from environmental damage e.g. the forest fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia. HELF could assist these parties in seeking justice: from the Indigenous People being deported from their ancient lands to nature conservation groups trying to save the orang-utan, and from a local farmer finding his crops polluted by smog to the director of Singapore Changi Airport seeking for compensation for recurring closure of his airport as a result of poor visibility. All these parties may very well welcome the help offered by the legal facility in The Hague in directing them to a proper (alternative) dispute resolution mechanism.”
Findings in gaps and development of environmental law also revealed the unexploited potential of remote sensing satellite monitoring to deliver “teeth” to existing legislation on European and international level. The University College of London is currently conducting a research program on existing satellite applications for legal compliance in Australia, which has the richest history in the legal use of remote sensing to protect the environment.
Jonathan Solomon
HELF Project Assistant
University College of London - Centre for Law and the Environment | The Hague Environmental Law Facility
