World in Trouble: Drought, War, Food, Flight
By Paul Rogers
The disruptions of climate and conflict are sparking
perilous global insecurity
'What seems to be most significant today, and increasingly
accepted within the FAO and other agencies, is that climate change is becoming
a permanent reality affecting food supplies in many parts of the world. It is
not something for the future, but is happening now.'
Six years ago there were fears of a transnational famine
developing across much of eastern Africa. At least 11 million people were at
risk in what might have been the worst disaster of its kind since the early
1970s .
This impending crisis was not unforeseen. An analysis of
several interlocking factors, already evident several years earlier, had anticipated
such an outcome .
These factors included higher oil prices, the early impact of climate change,
increased demand for feed grains to boost meat production for the richer
countries, and the diversion of land to grow biofuels.
These recent moments of urgent concern from ten and six
years ago mirror the near-disaster of the world food crisis of 1973-74, when
multiple elements put at least 22 million people at risk. The danger then was
narrowly avoided by emergency financial aid to enable the most crisis-ridden
states to purchase grain from the international markets.
But that very success pointed to an underlying feature of
all such crises, which needs to be better understood: namely, there has never
been too little food to go round, for (at least since 1945) world grain
resources have not been anywhere near complete depletion. The problem, instead,
has been much more one of poverty. In short, people are unable for many reasons
to grow their own food and far too poor to buy food when harvests fail.
There has never been too little food to go round.
Now there is a new international food crisis, as reported by
the director-general of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation
at the organisation's biennial conference. Jose Graziano da Silva said that the
FAO "has identified nineteen countries facing severe food crises due to a
combination of conflict and climate change, including South Sudan, northeast
Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, where nearly 20 million are at risk.”
In broad terms, da Silva and the FAO specialists see the
current predicament as a reversal of the previous trend in which there has been
a slow improvement in food availability across the world – the two recent
periods cited above being the exception. Now there is a real problem, with the
FAO calculating that some 60% people across the world who face hunger live in
countries experiencing conflict or climate change, or both at once.
The effect of conflict on food availability, as in the many
irregular wars of recent years, is clear enough. Here, some countries are able
eventually to see a degree of peace restored, while others continue to be
consumed by violence and as a result suffer deep food insecurity (see Irregular
War: ISIS and the New Threat from the Margins [IB Tauris, 2016]).
But what seems to be most significant today, and
increasingly accepted within the FAO and other agencies, is that climate change
is becoming a permanent reality affecting food supplies in many parts of the
world. It is not something for the future, but is happening now new reality".
Time to act
Since the early 1990s It has been recognised that climate
change is an asymmetric process, which is likely to lead to a progressive
drying out of the tropical and sub-tropical regions. David Rind’s seminal
article was a vital early contribution for the non-specialist, in emphasising
less that global rainfall was decreasing and more that this rainfall was
tending to fall over the oceans and polar regions (see "Drying out the
Tropics", New Scientist, 6 May 1995). Since the tropics and sub-tropics
provide much of the food for the whole world, the implications of a fall in the
carrying-capacity of the croplands would be progressive and, ultimately,
catastrophic .
Climate change is an asymmetric process, which is likely to
lead to a progressive drying out of the tropical and sub-tropical regions.
As with so many aspects of climate change, little was done
at a global level in light of this knowledge. The world is now witnessing the
results. The degree of vulnerability is shown by the relative availability of
renewable water resources in different parts of the world. An FAO analysis puts
it bluntly:
“In the Near East and
North Africa region, the per capita renewable water availability is around 600
cubic metres per person per year – only 10 per cent of the world average –and
drops to just 100 cubic metres in some countries…”
With financial support and political commitment, there are
many ways for food-producing communities to adapt in some degree to a decline
in rainfall. The tactics might include really substantial improvements in water
conservation, changes in the crops being grown and greater use of
drought-tolerant varieties. These are necessary and buy time, but only up to a
point. They will only realise their potential in the long term if the root
cause of climate change – carbon emissions – is addressed. There is no escape
from the need for a rapid reduction in such emissions.
The increasing migratory flows across the Mediterranean
towards southern Europe, and through other routes, are already featuring on the
news agenda. These will become a familiar daily story in the coming months. Yet
there is currently little evidence that western governments recognise their
long-term significance and growing connection to climate change.
What is happening now is a marker for much greater pressures
as climate change translates into climate disruption. If that is grasped in a
strategic way, the urgent need to curb carbon emissions will become
unavoidable.
Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies
at Bradford University, northern England. He is OpenDemocracy's
international-security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global
security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the
Oxford Research Group. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror
(Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto
Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers
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