Climate change risks global instability – multiple factors

Indirect threats Displacement and civil unrest Climate change also affects food and water security, degrades the environment, increases the spread of diseases, and disrupts essential services like electricity production. These impacts can drive migration. One study found that if we continue our fossil fuel use trajectory, the probability of multiple simultaneous droughts could increase from the late 20th century average by 40 percent by 2050 and 60 percent by late century. These droughts could potentially affect 120 million people around the world, triggering crop failures, threatening water supplies, and forcing people to migrate. The World Bank has warned that 143 million people particularly in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America could end up migrating due to climate impacts. Migrants detained after crossing the US southern border Photo: Thomas Cizauskas As migrants enter countries or regions unprepared to deal with them, tensions rise. As we already see on the U.S. southern border, migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Venezuela, and other nations fleeing poverty, violence, and extreme weather are causing enormous political turmoil. Climate impacts contribute to poverty, social inequality, political instability, and violence. Weak governments have trouble meeting their people’s basic needs, so civil unrest increases. These conditions can lead to shifts in the regional balance of power or result in the failure of states. In some of these cases, the U.S. military may be called upon to come to the aid of its partners to restore stability Joshua Fisher, director of the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity at Columbia Climate School, said that most of the conflicts he sees in the world are not directly driven by climate change. “What climate change is doing is impacting already vulnerable societies,” he said. “So if there are tensions, if there are large sectors of the population who are marginalized, by and large those same sectors of society are going to be impacted disproportionately by climate change. This opens up a mechanism where climate change can further marginalize and harm already vulnerable people. And that can be the mechanism that leads to increased conflict.”