Does climate change lead to war? UN Secretary General, Ban-Ki Moon thinks so. Darfur "began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change," he claimedback in June.
The suggestion is controversial. Idean Salehyanis an especially fierce critic. Writing in Foreign Policy, he accusedMoon of ‘perverse logic'. The Sec Gen's irresponsible rhetoric merely allowed "oppressive, corrupt governments" to escape blame for their actions, Salehvan claimed.
Today in Bali, the United Nations Environment Programme weighed in with a brick of a report that argues that "combating climate change will be a central peace policy of the 21st century."
Climate Change as a Security Risk is written by the German Advisory Council on Global Change. So far, it argues, we don't have much of a problem. But that may change.
If predictions of the impact of global warming hold out, extreme weather events -droughts, floods and the like - will become more common. And this will all seem a storm in a teacup, if a number of climate tipping points are reached.
The risk of these disruptive changes are poorly understood. What if monsoon patterns change dramatically? Ice sheets reach the point of no return? Or the Amazon rainforest begins to collapse?
No-one knows exactly what the risk is of any of these disturbing events happening, but scientists are increasingly worried that they might.
Earlier in the week, for example, I talked to Daniel Nepstad, a tropical ecologist who has been studying the Amazon for over twenty years. He is seriously worried that the Amazon is about to start dying - and fast.
According to a report he has just published for WWF, ‘the point of no return is closer than we think.'
[quote]Current trends in agriculture and livestock expansion, fire, drought, and logging could clear or severely damage 55 percent of the Amazon rainforest by the year 2030.[/quote]
This would release colossal amounts of carbon into the atmosphere - maybe 10-40 billion tonnes over a twenty year period. That dwarves the 2 billion tonnes that the Kyoto protocol aims to take out of the system by 2012 and would fuel further climate change - pushing the world into a vicious cycle of further destructive climate change.
The impact of this, and other, tipping points are ‘incalculable', according to the German Advisory Council's report. That's ‘incalculable' as in incalculably bad, by the way.
On the whole, the report finds little chance of increased conflict between states. Instead, it is worried about increased political instability, failing economies, the impact of Katrina-style disasters, and the impact of mass migration as people seek more hospitable climes in which to live.
It takes us on a tour around a climate-degraded world. In India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, for example, people are at risk of losing the Himalayan glaciers on which they depend for water.
[quote]These dynamics will increase the social crisis potential in a region which is already characterized by cross-border conflicts (India/Pakistan), unstable governments (Bangladesh/Pakistan) and Islamism.[/quote]
At the heart of the report is a chapter that presents a series of conflict scenarios, where a future world either copes or doesn't cope with new environmental pressures.
One looks at a Southern Africa in 2020 where agricultural yields are falling and investment in new technologies has not been made, or fails to deliver results. Millions of people are on the move, looking for somewhere new to live, and Europe is doing everything it can to keep them out.
As law and order breaks down and civil war becomes endemic, "security is tipped beyond the point of no return; most of the region's metropolitan districts and broad swathes of countryside descend into anarchy."
Depressing stuff. But for many readers, this may seem a little close to Paul Ehrlich's much deridedprediction from the 1970s that:
[quote]The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate...[/quote]
Elhrich's Malthusian thinking was compelling for many, but wrong. So what's different about this German report? Remember that it's not making predictions, just trying to tell us what might happen. Doomsday scenarios are paired with ones where, in one way or enough, peace prevails as people rise to the challenge of a changing climate.
Then, there's the possibility that, if climate change really takes hold, Malthus's time may have come. The FT's Martin Wolf last week referred to a fable that, given his name, is presumably close to his heart, "The point of the story of the boy who cried wolf is that, finally, a wolf did appear."
What is certainly true is that interest in the links between climate and security is growing. The Pentagon has also been playing with scenarios, concluding that "because of the potentially dire consequences, the risk of abrupt climate change, although uncertain and quite possibly small, should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern."
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, meanwhile, lead author of the German report, is Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief advisor on climate. Expect her to continue to push climate change's links with conflict.
The UK has also been at pains to portray climate change as a security issue. It ruffled a few feathers in April when it pushed the issueonto the Security Council agenda.
I asked Professor Schellnhuber about the impact of that debate. "The fact that this debate occurred was a major step forward," he replied. "It's on the agenda now. You do not have a blank sheet anymore when you talk about environmental change and security issues."
And what of Darfur? Does the report back up Ban-Ki Moon's controversial claim? Well, yes and no.
On the one hand, it argues that the conflict does have environmental roots. Overuse has led to desertification, with droughts making the cycle worse. But it's not clear whether this is down to a changing climate or natural climatic variability.
[quote]Research has not investigated whether climate change was a significant driver of the degradation of the natural environment experienced in the Sahel in the 1980s and 90s, thus contributing to present conflict in the region.[/quote]
But a changing climate seems certain to make things worse in Darfur and the rest of its region. Hot arid regions simply cannot afford to get drier and warmer. Food production will suffer especially badly even if warming is kept below a two degree rise.
In a part of the world where governments struggle to control their own territory, the German report notes, that does not bode well for a better future. The link between climate and security, it seems, is likely to be here to stay.