This will limit access to food, safe water, power, sanitation, and health services and drive mass migration and competition for remaining resources. Starvation, diarrhoea, and infectious diseases will become more common, and neonatal and adult mortality will rise, as a result of conflict.2 In accordance with this, in 2004, seven of the 10 countries with the highest mortality rates in children under 5 were conflict or immediate post-conflict societies.3.
The IISS report states that “The earth is warming, and has been for at least a century," with this being “directly attributable to the increasing emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases." As a result, “Climate change may already be changing weather and precipitation patterns" and will continue to drive extreme weather events and changes in water resources (through flood, drought, and rising sea levels), and it will adversely affect global food and energy production. This quote comes not from an environmental pressure group but from security experts drawn from US and UK military and intelligence communities. At the same time, Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence for the United States, recently stated that, “Some recent climate science would indicate that the effects of climate change are accelerating."4 In addition, the Pentagon's 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review to Congress stressed the potential for climate change to contribute to “poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments." It continues with: “Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration,"5 which in turn may increase the likelihood of instability and risk to national security.
Such statements resonate with those of a 2009 Lancet report, which made it clear that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century, with the greatest threat coming from effects on water and food security, human shelter and settlements, and resultant population migration.6 From such soil is conflict born. The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence states that “climate change will amplify existing social, political and resource stresses" and will shift “the tipping point at which conflict ignites."7 The IISS report concurs: “Climate change will increase the risks of resource shortages, mass migration, and civil conflict. These could lead to failed states, which threaten global stability and security." In this way, conflict and poor health feed upon one another. Read the full report here.
Source: BMJ.com.
