Climate Change as a Security Threat – Sub-Saharan Africa

Editor’s note: While linkages between climate change and security remain subject to debate, advocates are likely to identify sub-Saharan Africa as the region most at risk of instability as a result of global warming and environmental upheaval. With this concern in mind, today we present an excerpt from the Institute for Security Studies’ (ISS) ‘Links between Climate Change, Conflict and Governance in Africa’. Our partners also outline some of the climate change-induced mechanisms at work in many African states and their potential contribution to regional security.

Climate Change as a Security Threat in Africa

Human security and environmental protection are mutually dependent. On the one hand, the depletion of natural resources undermines livelihoods, increases vulnerability to disaster and puts human security at risk. On the other, issues of democratic governance, namely violent conflict, inappropriate or inadequate policy frameworks, and political instability lead to the mismanagement of natural resources and the maladministration of justice. An attempt will be made to provide an understanding of the forces that lead to environmental and political insecurity, with special focus on Africa under the effects of climate change.

Africa has seven distinct climatic zones and ecosystems ranging from that of the Sahara to the rainforests of central Africa. The impact of climate change will vary between and within countries. However, determining the regional impacts of climate change with any level of confidence is difficult. Available climate change evidence for Africa suggests increasingly scarce water resources in central Africa, declining and failing agricultural yields in the Horn of Africa, encroaching, desert-like environments in Algeria, Chad and Mali, the destruction of marine and coastal resources, and damage to property and infrastructure. These changes are already undermining the carrying capacity of large parts of the dry pastoral regions in Africa, causing destabilising population movements and raising tensions over dwindling key resources. Under these circumstances climate change potentially becomes a significant factor that can tip fragile states such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Somalia into socio-economic and political collapse.

Climate change has repeatedly been called a major threat to Africa. Indeed, Africa has time and again been considered the continent that will be affected most negatively by climate change owing to the combination of severe climate-related impacts, economies that are highly climate-dependent, and countries that have the least capacity to adapt. For example, Cameroon, Chad, the DRC and Nigeria all have high export levels consisting mainly of natural resources. These resources (or natural capital) are estimated to contribute about 26 per cent and 13 per cent to the total wealth of low-income and middle-income countries respectively, which, in the main, are located in Africa. The comparative percentage for industrialised nations is just two per cent.

To explore the direct role of climate change to explain the historical risk of conflict in Africa, Burke et al used 1981 to 2002 panel data on climate variation and conflict events. The results reveal that temperature can affect agricultural yields through increases in both crop and surface water evapo-transpiration, resulting in heightened water stress in the absence of irrigation. The combined effect of these mechanisms could be expected to reduce African staple crop yields by 10 to 30 per cent for every degree Celsius (°C) of warming. This is an important finding in the light of the heavy dependence of African countries on agriculture and the production of primary commodities. Adverse consequences of climate change for food security in Africa seems inevitable, as demonstrated in 2010–2012 by the food situation in the Horn of Africa.

Recent predictions suggest an increase of 54 per cent in armed conflict in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030 compared to the 1980–2000 period. Concurrently, the risk of violent conflict and climate-induced armed conflict is considered high for Africa. The climate change-linked spatial and temporal changes in rainfall patterns and frequent droughts make the survivability of African pastoralists in arid environments particularly difficult. The fighting between pastoralists and farmers in the Oromia and Ogaden regions of Ethiopia, inter-clan fighting in Somalia and increased fighting during drought periods in northern Nigeria all indicate the link that exists between the human impact of 3 climate change and the threat of violent conflict. Conflicts between pastoral communities in the arid and semi-arid borderlands of northern Kenya, southern Sudan and southern Ethiopia are linked to competition over access to pasture and water, livestock raiding and the heavy presence of small arms.

In such regions, inter-annual and inter-seasonal variability in rainfall patterns determines pastoral mobility and the use of fall-back grazing areas, inter-community relations, altered land tenure arrangements and conflict, all of which lead to overgrazing of excessively used rangeland. The availability of communal rangeland resources across national borders and sporadic pastoralist conflicts over key natural resources are common features in dry lands. Although the availability of resources may seem the natural cause, pastoral conflict may be triggered by the absence of good institutions and external interference. It is not drought but the coming of the rains that is associated with greater concern about conflict, and a strong pointer to the role institutional governance can play in the use of natural resources and access to pastoral lands. While this remark indicates that pastoralists do not fight during a time of scarcity, but during periods of plenty, loss of life because of the widespread use of sophisticated firearms and the disruption of livelihoods remains a major concern for security policies.

Aside from the political fragility of many countries, violent conflict is still prevalent throughout the continent, although currently not at inter-state level. The region that stretches from central Africa to the Horn of Africa is particularly worrisome in terms of localised conflict. In a number of African countries the increase in violent conflict is the most striking feature of the cumulative effects of climate change. Conflict per se is not a problem as such, but violent conflict as a consequence of climate change certainly is. It is how the aftermath of conflict is handled that matters most as far as policy is concerned.

Algeria is an illustrative case. Only three per cent of its total area is arable. Coming out of decades of civil war, with a death toll of 150 000, it is expected that the country will be impacted seriously by climate change. Pressure on limited arable land and a serious risk of desertification, increased water scarcity and severe food shortages, especially in the northern region, are likely to be made worse by rising temperatures and decreasing rainfall. The never-ending conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan and the resulting human tragedy are in part the result of climate change and its interaction with triggers of violent conflict. Chad and Mali, which lie partly in the semi-arid Sahel, have also already experienced higher temperatures and less rainfall during shorter rainy seasons, resulting in poor harvests and drought. Pressures on the agricultural sectors of these countries have therefore increased significantly, further exacerbating existing tensions between herders and farmers competing for dwindling resources. Rainfall patterns can and do affect inter-community relations, and pastoralist conflict over the key natural resources may occur.

Africa is often termed the troubled continent, or the world’s nightmare, a continent with climate-dependent economic sectors at risk of violent ethnic conflict. The conflicts in Africa are attributable to demand for the fair distribution of resources, historical grievances, disputes over access to increasingly scarce resources and weak state institutions. The Albertine Rift in the DRC, which is in a constant struggle to end an ongoing civil war, is one of the most biodiversity rich and ecologically unique regions of Africa. This wealth coincides with an abundance of mineral resources, but sadly the region has been the centre of some of the world’s most devastating conflicts in recent history. This turbulent context poses a range of risks and opportunities to conservation agencies, who are managing environmental resources that can be both the seed of conflict and the foundation for peace-building and ensuing development.

The population of Africa is growing rapidly and urbanising. This means not only that the demand for resources will continue to grow, but also that the impact of climate change will be exacerbated. Africa is lagging behind Asian countries such as India, Singapore and China as regards economic development, and is also significantly behind schedule in achieving its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Many of the approximately 30 per cent of developing countries that lag behind in achieving their MDG targets are in Africa. Most African states currently have difficulty in delivering or fail to deliver basic services such as education, health care, etc., while development funds are hardly a substitute for economic development.

The World Development Report 2010: development and climate change was released ahead of the December 2009 meeting on climate change in Copenhagen. In the resulting Copenhagen Accord it was agreed that global emissions must be reduced ‘so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 °C’, but it failed to clarify the means to achieve this objective. It was a non-binding Rainfall patterns can and do affect inter-community relations, and pastoralist conflict over the key natural resources may occur Links between climate change, conflict and governance in Africa political declaration and failed to provide a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The accord cites that global warming of 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures could result in a permanent reduction in annual per capita consumption of four to five per cent in Africa.

On this note, the possible security threat posed by climate change generally follows three paths. Firstly, insufficient rainfall and rising temperatures may threaten people’s livelihoods, especially in the poor regions of Africa. The climatic variables may, by virtue of frequent droughts and heightened resource scarcity, result in environmental stress and land-use related conflicts as witnessed in Kenya, with both the Mau forest issue and the 2008 post-election violence being examples. Considering the limited capacities of developing economies, this could then trigger conflict and general instability, particularly in instances where institutions and governance structures are weak.

Secondly, the rise in the sea level, the melting of glaciers and extreme weather events induced by climate change would provide new environmental conditions and create situations of conflict. Thirdly, and more challenging, the threats of non-linear events brought about by climate change could have irreversible consequences for life on earth. With this in mind, there is need for immediate action to ensure that Africa’s development prospects and human livelihoods are not compromised by heightened climate variability and the effects of climate change.

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