Showing posts from category migration.
-
PODCAST – Modeling the Future: Population and Climate Change
›March 3, 2008 // By Sean PeoplesUncovering the numerous variables that can influence global climate change can be daunting. Brian O’Neill and his colleagues are improving our understanding of some of these factors by modeling how demographic shifts—such as aging or urbanization—could impact climate change. O’Neill is a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Institute for the Study of Society and Environment in Boulder, Colorado, and also leads the Population and Climate Change (PCC) Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria. Researching population-environment interactions and the science and policy of global climate change led to O’Neill’s recent work as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change‘s Fourth Assessment Report. In this podcast, O’Neill describes how shifting demographic patterns could influence a changing climate.
Click below to stream the podcast:
Modeling the Future of Population and Climate Change: Download. -
Reading Radar– A Weekly Roundup
›February 29, 2008 // By Wilson Center StaffNorman Borlaug’s innovative plant breeding techniques—which he used to develop varieties of wheat resistant to stem rust—spawned the Green Revolution and earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. An article in MIT Technology Review (free registration required) discusses why the Green Revolution did not spread to Africa and which policies and techniques could strengthen African agriculture.
“In Mexico City, mass protests about the cost of tortillas. In West Bengal, disputes over food-rationing. In Senegal, Mauritania, and other parts of Africa, riots over grain prices.” An article from the World Bank explores the causes and consequences of—and solutions to—skyrocketing food prices.
Frequent ECSP contributor Richard Cincotta examines the links between population age structure and democracy in an article in Foreign Policy magazine (subscription required for full article).
“We must address the human consequences of climate change and environmental degradation,” said UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-wa Kang at a February 19 conference on climate change and migration. Full transcript here. -
Reading Radar– A Weekly Roundup
›February 22, 2008 // By Wilson Center StaffIn Dead Water, a report released today by the UN Environment Programme, warns that pollution, overharvesting, invasive species, and climate change pose grave threats to the world’s fisheries and coral reefs. “Fishing for a Secure Future,” a recent meeting series hosted by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP), examined the many challenges facing fisheries—as well as potential solutions.
U.S. officials might have taken more aggressive steps to combat climate change at the recent UN climate change conference in Bali had the Pentagon pressured them more forcefully, argue John Podesta and Peter Ogden in a Financial Times op-ed. According to Podesta and Ogden, climate change will threaten the U.S. military’s ability to effectively perform many of its duties, including responding to natural disasters and stabilizing fragile states.
“While governments continue to rely on the military as a preferred tool of security policy, the nature of many of the world’s intractable conflicts suggests severely misplaced priorities. Research suggests that among the underlying reasons for many tensions today are competition over lucrative resources and the repercussions from environmental degradation,” writes the Worldwatch Institute’s Michael Renner, who argues that UN peacekeeping forces, if given sufficient funds, could do a better job calming unstable regions than militaries. Renner also discussed environment-conflict links at the Wilson Center in June 2007.
Mongolians are moving from the steppes to cities in record numbers, and climate change is one of the drivers of this migration, reports National Geographic. “Reign of Sand,” a multimedia report by the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum and water NGO Circle of Blue, explores how desertification is threatening Inner Mongolians’ traditional livelihoods.
A report by the Population Council examines the impact of the Partners for Food Security project, which aimed to reduce the food insecurity of HIV-infected households in Tororo, Uganda, by fostering collaboration among agricultural, health, and economic development organizations. According to the report, “the coordination of agricultural extension and HIV/AIDS education and awareness can enhance the outcomes of both sets of activities.” -
Refugees’ Bushmeat Consumption Threatening Tanzanian Wildlife
›January 31, 2008 // By Liat RacinLacking adequate protein in their diet, refugees in Tanzania are eating chimpanzees and other endangered species, says a report by the international wildlife conservation group TRAFFIC, a joint project of the World Wildlife Fund and the World Conservation Union (IUCN). “Relief agencies are turning a blind eye to the real cause of the poaching and illegal trade: a lack of meat protein in refugees’ rations,” said George Jambiya, the lead author of the report, which urges humanitarian agencies to supply refugees with legal, sustainable wild meat.
In response to the report’s assertions, Christiane Berthiaume of the UN World Food Programme, which feeds 215,000 refugees in Tanzania, said that meat spoils quickly, and substituting canned meat for the cheaper beans that currently supply the refugees with protein would cost an additional $46 million over the estimated $60 million currently dedicated to feeding refugees in Tanzania during 2007 and 2008. An IUCN press release argues that not providing East African refugees with meat is inequitable, given the provision of corned beef to Croatians, Slovenians, and Serbians displaced during the early 1990s.
The decimation of the wildlife surrounding refugee camps is threatening local non-refugee communities that depend on wildlife for food and income. Smaller wildlife populations also make these areas less attractive to tourists, another source of income. -
New Report Outlines Impact of Climate Change on Law Enforcement
›January 30, 2008 // By Sonia Schmanski“The risks of climate change demand a rethink of approaches to security,” writes Chris Abbott in An Uncertain Future: Law Enforcement, National Security and Climate Change, a report released recently by Oxford Research Group. Climate change’s impact on security concerns has recently moved to the forefront of global dialogue, a development Abbott links to three trends: widespread acceptance of scientific evidence that climate change is real; increased attention to energy security; and growing awareness of nontraditional threats around the world.
Abbott claims that three likely socio-economic impacts of climate change—damaged infrastructure, resource scarcity, and mass displacement of people—could easily lead to civil strife, intercommunal violence, and international instability. For instance, he warns that major problems should be expected where small, affluent populations live next to large, poor ones—a contention U.S. and Mexican leaders, among others, should take note of.
Law enforcement and police should prepare for four key climate-related developments, says Abbott:- Demands for greater border security;
- Changes in rates and types of crimes, due to large-scale migration;
- The need to enforce newly enacted climate-related laws; and
- The need to respond to increasingly frequent natural disasters.
- Difficulties maintaining the soundness of equipment and weaponry and the health of military personnel in a changed climate;
- Loss of defense assets (for instance, military bases on low-lying islands or coasts that will need to be relocated);
- More frequent peacetime deployments, particularly for disaster relief; and
- Instability in strategically important regions, such as the Horn of Africa or the Persian Gulf.
-
Bangladesh’s Stability Threatened by Natural Disasters, Migration, Terrorism
›December 13, 2007 // By Thomas RenardLast month, Cyclone Sidr killed thousands of Bangladeshis and displaced thousands more. Yet natural disasters are not the only threats facing Bangladesh. Dhaka is struggling to control three interrelated challenges: natural disasters, conflict with India, and international terrorism.
- Bangladesh is among the countries most severely affected by natural disasters. UN statistics illustrate the extent of these almost-annual catastrophes. Two wind storms killed 300,000 and 140,000 in 1970 and 1971, while floods affected 38 million in 1974 and 78 million in 1987.
- Repeated environmental disasters have triggered migration within Bangladesh, but also into India, and these migrations have sometimes led to conflict. Rafael Reuveny found that past environmental migrations within Bangladesh and between Bangladesh and India have already triggered high-intensity conflict, mainly along ethnic lines. Generally, conflict arises as a result of competition for land, water, and jobs. But Indians are also concerned about the “Bangladeshization” of the states of Assam and Tripura. According to recent voting records, reports the Christian Science Monitor, 99 percent of the residents living on the Indian side of the India-Bangladesh border are Bangladeshi immigrants. In order to reduce and manage immigration, India has been building a 2,500-mile long, 12-foot high double fence packed with razor wire along its border.
- In his article “Al Qaeda Strikes Back” in Foreign Affairs earlier this year, Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, warned that Bangladesh could become an important base for al Qaeda. “The Jihad Movement in Bangladesh was one of the original signatories of bin Laden’s 1998 declaration of war on the West,” he said. In 2006, “as bitter feuding between the two main political parties was increasingly ripping the country apart, there were growing indications that Bangladeshi fundamentalist groups were becoming radicalized. The political meltdown now under way in the capital, Dhaka, is creating the type of fractious environment in which al Qaeda thrives.”
Now, climate change could make the above challenges even worse. “Climate change is a threat multiplier,” Environmental Change and Security Program Director Geoff Dabelko told the Christian Science Monitor. “It’s not that it creates a whole new set of problems, it’s that it will make things that are already a problem worse.” Climate change is likely to make natural disasters more frequent and more powerful; to increase the frequency and extent of environmental migrations; and to increase grievances and the likelihood of state failure, both of which could facilitate terrorism.
- Bangladesh is among the countries most severely affected by natural disasters. UN statistics illustrate the extent of these almost-annual catastrophes. Two wind storms killed 300,000 and 140,000 in 1970 and 1971, while floods affected 38 million in 1974 and 78 million in 1987.
-
New Reading: Environment, Population, and Security in Africa
›November 16, 2007 // By Thomas RenardThe November issue of International Affairs focuses on security issues in Africa, with several articles investigating the links among environment, population, and security.
Chatham House’s Nicholas Shaxson explores poverty and bad governance in oil-rich countries in the Gulf of Guinea. “Oil, corruption and the resource curse” builds on the author’s extensive research into the politics of oil in sub-Saharan Africa, including interviews with numerous key players.
“Climate change as the ‘new’ security threat: implications for Africa,” by Oli Brown, Anne Hammill, and Robert McLeman, reviews the linkages between climate change and security in Africa. Climate change could precipitate socio-economic and political collapse, the authors say. However, good adaptation policies could help prevent environmental stresses from triggering conflict.
In “Human security and development in Africa,” Nana K. Poku, Neil Renwick, and Joao Gomes Porto note that Africa is unlikely to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal by the target year of 2015. Arguing that security and development are closely intertwined, they identify four critical developmental security issues: ensuring peace and security; fostering good governance; fighting HIV/ AIDS; and managing the debt crisis.
Finally, David Styan of Birkbeck College, London, examines the relationship between international migration and African economic security in his article “The security of Africans beyond borders: migration, remittances and London’s transnational entrepreneurs.” -
Climate Change Reshapes World’s Atlas
›September 11, 2007 // By Thomas RenardClimate change has been altering the world’s geography so rapidly that cartographers can hardly keep up. The prestigious Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World was last published in 2003, and in preparation for the release of the 12th edition this year, coastlines, lakes, forests, and cities have had to be redrawn.
The Aral Sea in Central Asia has shrunk by 75 percent in 40 years, while Lake Chad in Africa is only 5 percent of its 1963 size. Furthermore, during certain times of the year, the Rio Grande, Colorado, Yellow, and Tigris rivers fail to reach the sea.
The 12th edition of the atlas contains approximately 20,000 updates. Naturally, not all the updates are consequences of climate change: 3,500 are simply name changes, and not every geographic update is the result of climate change. Also, not all the geographic changes occurred during the last four years—some happened earlier, but are only now being noticed by mapmakers, who are becoming increasingly aware of climate change-related geographical changes.
Some changes were previously unknown because they were happening in isolated parts of the world. In India, for instance, official records list 102 islands in the Sunderbans, where the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal. Those islands are inhabited by 1.8 million people. However, after a six-year study, scientists have been able to map only 100 islands, finding that the other two had been swallowed up by the sea, said Sugata Hazra, director of Calcutta’s School of Oceanography Studies at Jadavpur University. Scientists estimate that the submersion of the two islands rendered approximately 10,000 people homeless.
Rising sea levels—which threaten to submerge some 12 additional islands in the Sunderbans—are sometimes perceptible to the human eye. In Bangladesh, many islands disappear each year, forcing populations to migrate from island to island and to live in extremely precarious conditions. As Shahidul Mullah, who lives with his family on a small island in Bangladesh, told Spiegel Online, “When I moved here, we still had three fields in front of the house. Now there are only two. I’m afraid the water will take another piece away from me this year.”
