Climate change may disrupt global stability and security: UN

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and the UN environmental program’s executive director, says the changing climate has “profound implications for global stability and security” as conflicts as climate change opens up access to natural resources in the Arctic. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Officials at a July 20 United Nations security council debate heard a grim message about the impact of climate change on international peace and a call for global action to address future conflicts due to the planet’s warming.

“The scale and pace of climate change acts as a multiplier which could result in simultaneous and unprecedented impacts on where we can settle, grow food, maintain our built-up infrastructure, or rely on functioning ecosystems,” said UN Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner, also director of the UN’s environmental program, speaking on how the changing climate has “profound implications for global stability and security.”

The quantity and quality of the world’s resources will be at increasing risk from climate change and its impacts, he warned.

“Without broad and cooperative action, irreversible tipping points could occur with perhaps sudden and abrupt shocks to communities and countries,” he said.

These could trip tensions and turmoil into conflict and war, he said.

“As climate change opens up access to natural resources in the Arctic, including major untapped reserves of oil, gas and minerals, how will increasing competition for ownership and access be managed? Can new forms of environmental diplomacy address such transboundary risks or are territorial sovereignty issues likely to increase political tensions,” Steiner asked.

To avoid this scenario, the world’s countries need to act together, he said.

The international community can avoid escalating conflicts, tensions and insecurity related to a changing climate if “a deliberate, focused and collective response can be catalyzed that tackles the root causes, scale, potential volatility and velocity of the challenges emerging,” he said.

These challenges include sea-level rise and extreme weather events, “clear evidence that our climate is changing and that the pace and scale of that change is accelerating in many areas.”

Steiner cited the conclusions from the recent Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic report which said sea-level rise of close to a metre or more is likely by the end of the century as a result of faster melting of the Greenland ice sheets.

The newly emerging science points to tipping points, “sudden and perhaps irreversible changes accompanied by feedback mechanism,” such as an Arctic free of summer ice by 2030, which, Steiner said, could reduce the amount of sunlight reflected back into space and lead to even more heat being absorbed.

The thawing of the permafrost in the Arctic may also trigger releases of “ancient, stored carbon from the tundra,” he said.

Unchecked climate change might cause up to 100 billion tonnes of this “old carbon” to be released from melting permafrost this century, which would be equal to “270 years of carbon dioxide emissions at current levels,” he said.