185
8
In fact, this international attention to the securitization of climate change is
found in particular among policy, military and NGO actors, while relatively few
researchers advocate this idea (Selby and Hoffman 2014). ‘In this, the climate
security field diverges sharply from other areas of climate change policy, where
scientists have played formative … roles in pushing forward national and international
action’ (Selby and Hoffmann 2014: 749).
In a historical perspective, this new ‘climate reductionism’ (giving climate the
role as the main variable predicting social change) may be compared to the ‘climate
determinism’ of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century (Hulme 2014).
As in the heydays of climate determinism when the agency of colonial subjects was
reduced to being a product of African climates, there is also a particular focus on
Africa in today’s climate reductionism. African drylands, and in particular the Sahel,
are usually pointed out as the most prominent example where there is ‘a volatile mix
of climate change, drought, food shortages, migration and immobility, armed
insurrection and heavy weapons proliferation’. 1 The Sahel was also pointed to by the
Norwegian Nobel Committee as the prime example of the link between climate
change and conflict when former US Vice President Al Gore and the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2007.
This narrative about the climate-desertification-conflict nexus in the Sahel
consists of two elements. The first says that global climate change leads to drought
and desertification, which in turn lead to resource scarcity, while the second holds
that this resource scarcity causes migration and the emergence of new conflicts, or it
triggers existing, latent conflicts (Benjaminsen 2008, 2016).
The narrative is also deeply Malthusian (Hartmann 2014; Selby and Hoffmann
2014) in its focus on resource scarcity as a cause of environmental degradation,
poverty, and an escalating struggle for resources, and with roots in the ‘environmental
security’ school that emerged in the 1990s (Homer-Dixon 1994). Traditionally, this
literature has primarily been concerned with ‘overpopulation’ and the associated
‘overuse’ of renewable natural resources (Homer-Dixon 1999), but with global
warming and the subsequent climate security narrative, the anticipated impact of
anthropogenic climate change on the security of societies and livelihoods has gained
prominence.
The concept of scarcity as a cause of war and violence has taken root in the
media and popular scientific publications too. For instance, in an article published in
1994, the American journalist Robert Kaplan claimed that the conflicts in Liberia,
Rwanda and Somalia were unequivocally the result of overpopulation and
subsequent environmental crisis in Africa (Kaplan 1994). This article garnered
widespread attention and influence, and Tim Worth, then US Undersecretary of
1 Cited from the website of The Center for Climate and Security from a blog on the situation in
Mali 7 https://climateandsecurity.org/2012/04/23/mali-migration-militias-coups-and-climatechange/
Climate Change, Scarcity and Conflicts in the Sahel
8
In fact, this international attention to the securitization of climate change is
found in particular among policy, military and NGO actors, while relatively few
researchers advocate this idea (Selby and Hoffman 2014). ‘In this, the climate
security field diverges sharply from other areas of climate change policy, where
scientists have played formative … roles in pushing forward national and international
action’ (Selby and Hoffmann 2014: 749).
In a historical perspective, this new ‘climate reductionism’ (giving climate the
role as the main variable predicting social change) may be compared to the ‘climate
determinism’ of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century (Hulme 2014).
As in the heydays of climate determinism when the agency of colonial subjects was
reduced to being a product of African climates, there is also a particular focus on
Africa in today’s climate reductionism. African drylands, and in particular the Sahel,
are usually pointed out as the most prominent example where there is ‘a volatile mix
of climate change, drought, food shortages, migration and immobility, armed
insurrection and heavy weapons proliferation’. 1 The Sahel was also pointed to by the
Norwegian Nobel Committee as the prime example of the link between climate
change and conflict when former US Vice President Al Gore and the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2007.
This narrative about the climate-desertification-conflict nexus in the Sahel
consists of two elements. The first says that global climate change leads to drought
and desertification, which in turn lead to resource scarcity, while the second holds
that this resource scarcity causes migration and the emergence of new conflicts, or it
triggers existing, latent conflicts (Benjaminsen 2008, 2016).
The narrative is also deeply Malthusian (Hartmann 2014; Selby and Hoffmann
2014) in its focus on resource scarcity as a cause of environmental degradation,
poverty, and an escalating struggle for resources, and with roots in the ‘environmental
security’ school that emerged in the 1990s (Homer-Dixon 1994). Traditionally, this
literature has primarily been concerned with ‘overpopulation’ and the associated
‘overuse’ of renewable natural resources (Homer-Dixon 1999), but with global
warming and the subsequent climate security narrative, the anticipated impact of
anthropogenic climate change on the security of societies and livelihoods has gained
prominence.
The concept of scarcity as a cause of war and violence has taken root in the
media and popular scientific publications too. For instance, in an article published in
1994, the American journalist Robert Kaplan claimed that the conflicts in Liberia,
Rwanda and Somalia were unequivocally the result of overpopulation and
subsequent environmental crisis in Africa (Kaplan 1994). This article garnered
widespread attention and influence, and Tim Worth, then US Undersecretary of
1 Cited from the website of The Center for Climate and Security from a blog on the situation in
Mali 7 https://climateandsecurity.org/2012/04/23/mali-migration-militias-coups-and-climatechange/
Climate Change, Scarcity and Conflicts in the Sahel