UN-OCHA: Climate Change heating up conflict

BALI, 10 December 2007 (IRIN) - Increasing pressure caused by climate change on essential resources like water could not only trigger domestic conflicts but also have a destabilising effect globally, warn UN officials.

"It is not far-fetched to begin to see growing tensions; not far fetched to think climate change will globally have a destabilising effect," said Achim Steiner, Executive Secretary of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), who drew a scenario in which countries heavily affected by climate change would blame those not seen as doing enough to cut emissions.

Steiner's comments followed the release of a report, Climate Change as a Security Risk, by the German government's scientific advisory body on 10 December at the UN climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia: it warned that environmental shocks could outpace the adaptive capacities of some societies in the coming decades.

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Research in recent decades has shown that land degradation, water shortages and resource competition, when combined with other conflict-amplifying factors, have caused violence and conflict in the past, said the German study. Earlier this year, UNEP cited the war in Darfur as an example of the impact of climate change on stability.

"We are not trying to depoliticise the conflict," said Steiner, "[but] we need to learn, to understand, that if we had taken into account some of the factors [related to climate change], we could have avoided some of the conflicts that have exploded."

Regional hotspots highlighted by the report are in the longer post - click on the link below.

Regional hotspots

The German government's report draws scenarios of the social impact of climate change in regional hotspots. Some of them are:

North Africa: The populous Nile Delta will be at risk from sea-level rise and salinisation in agricultural areas. A drop in food production, water scarcity, high population growth and poor political problem-solving capacity could intensify political crisis and migratory pressure.

Sahel zone: Drought, water scarcity and food insecurity in a region already characterised by weak states and instability could aggravate social crises.

Southern Africa: Droughts and water scarcity could overstretch capacities in some of the poorest countries in the world.

Central Asia: Above-average warming and glacial retreat could exacerbate problems in the region, characterised by political and social tensions.

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh: Glacial retreat in the Himalayas would jeopardise water supply to millions of people, with sea-level rise and cyclones aggravating crises characterised by cross-border conflicts (India and Pakistan) and unstable governments.

"If we look at South Asia alone, the melting [glaciers would mean] tens of millions of people will have to leave their livelihoods. Where will they go? How will they impact on the host communities that receive them?" said Steiner. "We must look at the potential security threat posed by these changes - we cannot bury our heads in the sand."

Independent: Conflict Zones

Today's Independent contains a special Conflict Zones pullout, timed to coincide with the Dispatches from Disasters Zones event that we're hosting at the Foreign Press Association today.

The eight-page pullout, produced in association with the ICRC, includes coverage of Red Cross work in Afghanistan, Somalia, Colombia and Israel and the Occupied Territories, as well as a piece on our refugee services in the UK. There is a special editorial headlined 'The need for an organisation as sure-footed as the Red Cross is now greater than ever'.

RC Climate change videos from the Caribbean

Julia Brothwell has pointed out the DIPECHO page on the Caribbean Red Cross website, which has the rest of the videos from the series - we featured the Antigua and Bermuda video a few months ago.

Thanks Julia!

Sahel Working Group: Beyond Any Drought: Root Causes of Chronic Vulnerability in the Sahel

This report examines how vulnerability is understood and addressed by development agencies and government departments in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. The 2005 food crisis highlighted the extent of vulnerability in the Sahel region, increased international attention paid to the people of the Sahel and led to large sums of money being released to help those people survive the immediate crisis. Most studies written in the aftermath of the crisis have looked at the particular circumstances of the events of 2005. This report was commissioned by the Sahel Working Group, which was concerned that too much attention has been paid to a quite specific scenario and too little to the unacceptable and growing levels of vulnerability that pre-dated the crisis and persist two years later.

The present study took place during April and May 2007 and is based on a series of interviews with development practitioners and donor representatives in London, Washington DC, Bamako, Niamey and Ouagadougou, and on a desk review of academic and grey literature including commissioned reports on development approaches from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The report is available for download from Reliefweb.

Wahenga.net: Social transfers - briefs and case studies

The Regional Evidence Building Agenda, operated by the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (funded by DFID and AusAID) have just published a series of briefing papers describing case studies on various different types of cash programme in southern Africa.

The papers are available to download from the link above, and include case studies on Emergency Transfers in Malawi, Food Assistance in Mozambique, and Food Security in Zambia.

Iraq: Calls for a “Humanitarian Surge”

On 29^th November 2007, ODI/HPN hosted a discussion entitled “Responding to humanitarian needs in Iraq”. The two main speakers at this event were Agron Ferati, Iraq Country Director, International Medical Corps (IMC) and Peter Kessler, UNHCR.

Both speakers presented a very interesting analysis of the crisis and the humanitarian needs. This included the massive displacement of people both within and outside Iraq, the fact that this crisis affects everyone in Iraq, that women, children and minority groups are especially vulnerable and that with the huge numbers of people fleeing the country Iraq has now become the largest refugee crisis in the world (even larger than Darfur).

To illustrate this, UNHCR gave some approximate figures on displacement, (bearing in mind that these are very approximate as no one knows for sure the numbers affected): 4.5m Iraqis displaced in total, 2m in Iraq, 1.2m in Syria, 500-750k in Jordan, 80k in Egypt, 50k in Lebanon and 200k in the Gulf States. 1 in 7 Iraqis are now displaced. This is the biggest refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948 and it is the biggest urban crisis that UNHCR has ever faced.

However, an interesting debate came from IMC who argued that due to the recent improvement in the security situation in Iraq, now was the time for a “humanitarian surge”. NGOs need to move in now, step up activities and get a presence on the ground whilst there is this window of opportunity. They argued that it was time to stop doing endless assessments as the situation changes so rapidly; assessments go out of date and are useless in a matter of weeks. Instead agencies need to get in there and do something to make a real difference to the lives of Iraqis. If Iraqi people see a direct difference to their lives this will increase chances of stability in the country.

IMC concluded that this humanitarian surge needs to happen now before the situation deteriorates again. IMC is able to operate because they gain acceptance from local communities and tribal elders and therefore advises that this strategy would also work for other NGOs. Concern was expressed by representatives from other agencies attending the talk regarding the overall insecurity and volatility of the country, plus the apparent lack of multilateral/bilateral funding available for agencies aiming to work in Iraq.

We will therefore have to watch and see over the coming months as to whether agencies heed this call for a “humanitarian surge”, whether the security situation improves enough to allow this and whether enough is done to actually make a difference to the lives of the millions of Iraqi people currently facing the world’s largest crisis.

World Aids Day

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• ODI's World Aids Day page includes a wealth of information and papers on a variety of related issues
  
• UNAIDS have just released a new HIV Epidemic Update, available from their website - it includes fact sheets by region, and useful slides and graphics.
• ChristianAid report: Don’t Take on an Empty Stomach: Why HIV Treatment Won’t Work without Food
• More people are living with HIV and AIDS in Washington DC (the capital) than in any other US city, according to Reuters.
• British Red Cross have launched redcrosshiv.org, a dedicated HIV/AIDS site, which includes Youtube videos and links to Facebook and Bebo pages - Web 2.0 has arrived at Moorfields...

'This campaign is as a result of work undertaken by BRC. Ipsos MORI conducted a survey in Great Britain, Ethiopia, South Africa and Kyrgyzstan. In each country, 300 young people aged 14-25 were interviewed. Interviews in Ethiopia, South Africa and Kyrgyzstan were carried out face-to-face, in-home, and in Great Britain interviews were carried out online using a pre-recruited sample from Ipsos MORI's research panel.

Events at Moorfields:

Presentations in the auditorium, 2-3.30pm
-ICW Achievements over 15 years and outlook for the future - Fiona Pettitt, ICW
-Prevention of mother to child transmission - Nicola Stevenson and Alyson Lewis
-Communications project: International survey of young people and HIV - Amelia Lyons and Corinne Evans
-Celebration of partnership with ICW (International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS) - Matthias Schmale

Please come along to hear the latest research, attitudes and support towards people living with HIV. You are also invited to light a candle in City Point square between 12 noon and 2pm in support of people living with HIV.