Climate Conflicts: Myth or Reality?

Mar 6, 2018 | Hayley Stevenson
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The specter of water wars has long loomed large in political and popular imaginations. With the end of the Cold War, fresh concerns emerged that future wars would be fought not over ideology but over natural resources. The alliteratively appealing phrase of “water wars” began rolling off the tongue as United Nations leaders and politicians made bold claims about the inevitable carnage that resource scarcity would bring. Climate change heightens these concerns as the gap widens between what science tells us is necessary and what politics tells us is feasible. Climate change poses multiple risks with the potential to trigger tensions within and across nation-states. In some places flooding and the rise of sea levels will threaten homes and essential infrastructure; shrinking access to water for irrigation and consumption will undermine rural livelihoods, especially in semi-arid areas; and warming, drought, flooding, and changes in rain patterns will disrupt food systems and exacerbate food insecurity. The severity of these risks rises with higher global temperatures. In other words, risks are directly related to the present scale of mitigation action. So what can we expect in the years ahead? Are climate wars on the horizon, or do they largely lie in the realm of cli-fi fantasy?