Climate Change and International Security: Consequences for Future Europe

Abstract

The risks posed by climate change are real and its impacts are already taking place The UN estimates that all but one of its emergency appeals for humanitarian aid in 2007 were climate related The science of climate change is now better understood The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change1 s concern mounts over the impacts of global environmental change on social and ecological systems coinciding with a more fluid international security environment since the end of the Cold War environmental change is increasingly being understood demonstrate that even if by 2050 emissions would be reduced to below half of 1990 levels a temperature rise of up to 2 C above pre-industrial levels will be difficult to avoid Such a temperature increase will pose serious security risks that would increase if warming continues Unmitigated climate change beyond 2 C will lead to unprecedented security scenarios as it is likely to trigger a number of tipping points that would lead to further accelerated irreversible and largely unpredictable climate changes Investment in mitigation to avoid such scenarios as well as ways to adapt to the unavoidable should go hand in hand with addressing the international security threats created by climate change both should be viewed as part of preventive security policy The world as we knew it is coming to an end and it s up to us how it ends and what comes after It s the end of the age of fossil fuel but if the fossil-fuel corporations have their way the ending will be delayed as long as possible with as much carbon burned as possible If the rest of us prevail we will radically reduce our use of those fuels by 2030 and almost entirely by 2050 We will meet climate change with real change and defeat the fossil-fuel industry in the next nine years If we succeed those who come after will look back on the age of fossil fuel as an age of corruption and poison The grandchildren of those who are young now will hear horror stories about how people once burned great mountains of poisonous stuff dug up from deep underground that made children sick and birds die and the air filthy and the planet heat up