The window to act is closing rapidly

Former US Navy Admiral Samuel J Locklear III, in an interview with The Boston Globe in March 2013, said that warming of the planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen — that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.” By other scenarios, Samuel meant North Korean missiles, terrorism and Chinese hackers.

Pentagon’s 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap laid out an even severer warning: “Rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels, and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. They will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.”

We are already witnessing these forecasts playing out in the severest way. Below is an account of a few climate disasters to put the narrative of climate change being a security issue in perspective.

Last summer, Pakistan, ranked one of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change, was inundated with flooding. Millions of people had to relocate to other places, whereas the economic damage was calculated to the tune of $40 billion.

Pakistan receives most of its rain in the monsoon period. By August 27, 2022, Pakistan had received 2.9 times the 30-year national average, with rain falling in every part of the country. The government declared 72 districts across Pakistan calamity hit. In the normal course, Balochistan is hardly affected by monsoon rain. Therefore, the onslaught of rain it received in 2022 reflects a change in the monsoon pattern.

Friederike Otto, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute — Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London, said: “What we saw in Pakistan is exactly what climate projections have been predicting for years. It’s also in line with historical records showing that heavy rainfall has dramatically increased in the region since humans started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And our own analysis also shows clearly that further warming will make these heavy rainfall episodes even more intense.”

Climate change can dramatically change the fate of a country by becoming a contributing factor in the ongoing political unrest. Though the civil war in Syria and Iraq had borrowed their footprints from the terror attacks on the twin towers on 9/11, we cannot dismiss the effects of the drought in plunging Syria deeper into the crisis.

Syria’s water crisis in 2006-2011 led to a drought that wiped out 75% of crops and 85% of livestock. People had to shift to cities to earn the lost livelihood. It is estimated that more than 800,000 impoverished and jobless Syrians relocated. This massive exodus of farmers and others related to the agriculture business laid an additional burden on cities already busting at their seams with the exodus of Iraqi refugees since 2003.

It is not a coincidence that the civil unrest in Syria began in Dara. Considered a regional agricultural hub of Syria until 2001, it started turning into a famished skeleton in 2006 because of drought, water scarcity and lack of government intervention. Experts said: “It is no accident that Syria’s civil war began there.”

Europe has been facing severe drought and extremely low groundwater levels since 2018.

Torsten Mayer-Gurr, one of the researchers, told The Guardian: “I would never have imagined that water would be a problem here in Europe, especially in Germany or Austria. However, we are getting problems with the water supply here. We have to think about this.” Last year, the continent experienced the worse drought in 500 years. The coming summers shall be worse, say experts.

According to the European Drought Observatory, France and the UK are experiencing a “soil moisture deficit”. France had 32 consecutive rainless days.

The severity of the drought has raised the spectre of diminished vegetation. As a result, water reservoirs in Spain have dropped to 50% of their average levels. In addition, the Alps have received 63% less snow than usual.

The water level of Italy’s Lake Garde has gone down to its lowest in 30 years. River Rhine in Germany has become so shallow that barges must carry half loads.

Andrea Toreti, a senior researcher at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, told The Telegraph: “Given the current situation and considering the long-term effects of the 2022 drought, if enough precipitation will not occur in the coming weeks, there is high risk of yield losses, together with impacts on energy production, river transports, and on ecosystems.”

“This might be the new normal; we are going to have to learn to live with droughts like this,” Teresa Jorda, minister of climate action, food and rural affairs for the Spanish regions Catalonia. She added that besides an increase in food prices, fruits and vegetables are “on offer set to change”.

Africa is considered the most vulnerable to climate change. Among the risks the continent faces are scarcity of food, a drop in agricultural productivity and high water stress. If not taken care of without delay, the falling crop yields will push an estimated 43 million people in Africa alone below the poverty line by 2030.

South, Southeast and East Asia are vulnerable to the effects of reduced water supplies leading to the risk of a drop in agricultural output. Almost 1 billion people from these regions are susceptible to water-induced risks.

Glaciers from Greenland to Antarctica are melting at a rising rate leading to the rising sea level. Some estimates suggest a sea level rise of seven to eight feet by 2040. Rising sea level brings in multiple complications. First, every inch of sea-level rise erodes eight feet (2.4 meters) of sandy beach shoreline horizontally. Moreover, it leads to the mixing of salt water into freshwater aquifers, which contaminates drinking water and affects crops, especially those cultivated on the Delta, such as in Egypt.

The window to act is closing rapidly. Unless we smell the coffee and let go of the business-as-usual attitude, climate change will emerge more formidable than terrorism.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 13^th, 2023.

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