184
8
Trailer
In February 2008, Erik Solheim visited Mali. He was then the Norwegian Minister of
Environment and International Development. Later he became the Executive Director
of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) during 2016–2018. As he
flew over the arid Sahelian landscape in a light aircraft on his way from Timbuktu to
Bamako, he was interviewed by a journalist.
‘There are few historical driving forces behind conflicts as strong as environmental
degradation and the struggle for resources’, said Solheim. ‘The struggle for resources
was the cornerstone of the warrior culture initiated by Genghis Khan. This merely goes
to show how the struggle for resources and environmental degradation are a cause of
conflict,’ he continued. Journalists had been invited to join the official Norwegian visit
to Mali to witness how climate change creates scarcity, which again causes conflicts—in
this particular case the Tuareg rebellion that took place in northern Mali between 1990
and 1996.
Overview
Among policy-makers such as Solheim, a narrative of a climate-desertificationconflict nexus holds a strong position, in particular related to discussions about the
African Sahel. This narrative resonates also with the international attention to the
‘securitization of climate change’ (Brown et al. 2007) reflected in policy environments,
media, and some academic contributions.
Representing this thinking the journalist Gwynne Dyer’s widely acclaimed book
on ‘climate wars’, presents a future scenario where an ‘apocalyptic crisis’ is ‘set to
occupy most of the twenty-first century’ with ‘a probability of wars, if temperatures
rise 2 to 3 degrees Celsius’ (Dyer 2010: xi-xii). In a similar vein, another popular
book also titled ‘Climate Wars’ carries the subtitle ‘Why People Will Be Killed in the
twenty-first Century’ (Welzer 2012).
In parallel to most contributions to this literature, Welzer’s book does not see
climate change as the direct cause of conflicts, but more as one of the underlying
factors creating declining food production, increased land degradation through
more droughts and floods, increased health risks, and more people on the move.
Hence, ‘the consequences of climate change will reinforce and deepen survival
problems and the potential for violence; they will interact with political, economic,
ethnic and other social-historical factors and may also lead to open use of force’
(Welzer 2012: 75). This thinking is in line with numerous other security analysts
writing on this topic and it is frequently referred to as a ‘threat multiplier’, or a
‘catastrophic convergence’ resulting from a collision of political, economic, and
environmental disasters (Parenti 2011).
The highest international policy levels are in particular attracted to the
securitization of climate change. When the UN Security Council debated the links
between resource scarcity, development and conflicts in 2007, the Foreign Secretary
of the United Kingdom at the time, Margaret Beckett, concluded that ‘climate
change is transforming the way we think about security’, while the French
Ambassador to the UN stated that ‘the Security Council cannot ignore the threats to
international security caused by global warming’ (cited by Verhoeven 2014: 785).
Chapter 8 · Climate Change, Scarcity and Conflicts in the Sahel
8
Trailer
In February 2008, Erik Solheim visited Mali. He was then the Norwegian Minister of
Environment and International Development. Later he became the Executive Director
of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) during 2016–2018. As he
flew over the arid Sahelian landscape in a light aircraft on his way from Timbuktu to
Bamako, he was interviewed by a journalist.
‘There are few historical driving forces behind conflicts as strong as environmental
degradation and the struggle for resources’, said Solheim. ‘The struggle for resources
was the cornerstone of the warrior culture initiated by Genghis Khan. This merely goes
to show how the struggle for resources and environmental degradation are a cause of
conflict,’ he continued. Journalists had been invited to join the official Norwegian visit
to Mali to witness how climate change creates scarcity, which again causes conflicts—in
this particular case the Tuareg rebellion that took place in northern Mali between 1990
and 1996.
Overview
Among policy-makers such as Solheim, a narrative of a climate-desertificationconflict nexus holds a strong position, in particular related to discussions about the
African Sahel. This narrative resonates also with the international attention to the
‘securitization of climate change’ (Brown et al. 2007) reflected in policy environments,
media, and some academic contributions.
Representing this thinking the journalist Gwynne Dyer’s widely acclaimed book
on ‘climate wars’, presents a future scenario where an ‘apocalyptic crisis’ is ‘set to
occupy most of the twenty-first century’ with ‘a probability of wars, if temperatures
rise 2 to 3 degrees Celsius’ (Dyer 2010: xi-xii). In a similar vein, another popular
book also titled ‘Climate Wars’ carries the subtitle ‘Why People Will Be Killed in the
twenty-first Century’ (Welzer 2012).
In parallel to most contributions to this literature, Welzer’s book does not see
climate change as the direct cause of conflicts, but more as one of the underlying
factors creating declining food production, increased land degradation through
more droughts and floods, increased health risks, and more people on the move.
Hence, ‘the consequences of climate change will reinforce and deepen survival
problems and the potential for violence; they will interact with political, economic,
ethnic and other social-historical factors and may also lead to open use of force’
(Welzer 2012: 75). This thinking is in line with numerous other security analysts
writing on this topic and it is frequently referred to as a ‘threat multiplier’, or a
‘catastrophic convergence’ resulting from a collision of political, economic, and
environmental disasters (Parenti 2011).
The highest international policy levels are in particular attracted to the
securitization of climate change. When the UN Security Council debated the links
between resource scarcity, development and conflicts in 2007, the Foreign Secretary
of the United Kingdom at the time, Margaret Beckett, concluded that ‘climate
change is transforming the way we think about security’, while the French
Ambassador to the UN stated that ‘the Security Council cannot ignore the threats to
international security caused by global warming’ (cited by Verhoeven 2014: 785).
Chapter 8 · Climate Change, Scarcity and Conflicts in the Sahel