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Information on the current issue 3-2009

Thematic focus:
Climate Change and Security

Editorial

From 17 – 18 December 2009 delegates will meet for the 15th UN World Climate Conference in Copenhagen, where a climate treaty is to be negotiated to replace the current Kyoto Protocol. Now that – following the report by the British economist Stern in 2006 - the first reliable figures concerning the possible costs and follow-up costs of imminent climate change are available, enabling the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to present its evaluations, the governments of the world have had to realize that the present non-action could result in climatic, financial and security policy consequences and costs that could reach an un-controllable level by the middle of this century. The president of the Maledives put it quite bluntly: “If the sea level rises by only half a meter, my country will cease to exist”.

In June 2007 the German Advisory Council on Global Change presented to the German Government a report entitled “Changing World – Climate Change as a Security Risk” focussing on security policy implications for focal areas of climate change in selected regions. According to current forecasts global warming will have different effects on different regions.

The list of actions recommended to the German Government sketches out the time windows and the scope of options for preventing climate conflicts beyond the year 2020. For politicians this is an unusually long time period, whereas for climatologists and the climate itself this is a very short time.

More and more politicians ask with regard to the financial crisis the blunt question: ”Is climate change still affordable?”

This question is too short-sighted because we should not ignore the fact that whereas financial and economic crises may pose short and medium-term problems, climate change constitutes a long-term problem that – if we do not act now – could lead to extreme financial strains for states in less than 20 years from now (see the above mentioned Stern Report). Even today – to a greater extent than predicted by the IPCC a few years ago, by the way – we witness increasingly extreme weather conditions. Storm tides, floods, long dry periods are no longer local but global events of enormous impact on people, states and the respective economies. Meltwater from glaciers, the polar caps and the Greenland icecap is, even today triggering rising sea levels in oceans and marginal seas. Long droughts on the African continent are beginning to manifest a regional impact on the water supply and agricultural production. Water and food problems and resulting large-scale migration are developing into security policy challenges for those states, as well as for neighbouring regions like Europe.

Consequently, the focal topic of this edition of “Sicherheit + Frieden” will be the security risks and the security policy impact entailed by climate change.

In his article Michael Brzoska analyses four major international studies concerning “Security Risk Climate Change”. Comparing these studies – two from America, one from a nongovernmental body (supported by the British Government), and one from Germany, he concludes that the study by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) is the most comprehensive and most far-reaching one. He focuses his criticism on the fact that – from his point of view – approaches to security policy issues are too often constricted by recourse to classical, in part military security elements in the studies.

In their study “Krisenprävention durch Klima- und Energiesicherheit” (“Crisis Prevention through Climate and Energy Security“) Christoph Bals and Rixa Schwarz address climate change as a potential threat to humanitarian security. They explain the interrelationship between climate security, energy security and food security and advocate a global, cooperative approach which should be sponsored and directed by the EU and by Germany in particular.

Hans Günter Brauch describes in his article “Klimawandel und Sicherheit im Nahen Osten“ („Climate Change and Security in the Middle East“) the regional consequences that can be expected as a result of climate change, and their potential impact on the EU.

In his essay “Ökonomische Aspekte des Klimaschutzes” (“Ecological Aspects of Climate Protection“), Stefan Bayer analyses the financial possibilities and consequences of emission trading and correlates them with the issue of the long-term effects of climate change set against the short-term nature of political actions.

In his essay Dirk Messner discusses the interdependency between environment-linked changes to the availability of water and possible water conflicts, destabilization of societies and resulting migration. How failure to properly tailor a necessary water management system might trigger or exacerbate domestic or international conflicts.

Outside of this issue’s topic, Margret Johannsen argues in her article for a stronger integration of Hamas to better be able to meet the continuing violence in the Gaza strip. Sebastian Bruns analyzes in his contribution the strategic consequences of fighting piracy in front of Somalia‘s coast for the international community. Martin Welz and Julian Junk examine the political situation in Zimbabwe as well as the strategies of different external actors, designing four scenarios regarding the country’s political future. All articles outside the issue’s theme were peer-reviewed.

Heinz Dieter Jopp