Climate Wars

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  • Climate Wars
    • Just War
      • just cause
      • A war is only just when all other deterrents have been attempted and failed
        • Sanctions
        • Trade bans
        • UN Security Council Resolutions
        • Jus ad Vim (The Right to Use Force)
      • Jus in Bello (Laws of War)
        • Principle of Discrimination
          • Requires combatants to discriminate between combatants and civilians and attack only combatants.  
          • Combatants may not attack a target with the deliberate intention of killing civilians
          • Combatants may not attack a target indiscriminately – that is, without making an effort/taking due care to distinguish between enemy combatants and civilians 
          • Also applies to civilian property 
        • Principle of Proportionality
          • This differs in important respects from the condition of proportionality required under Jus ad Bellum
            • Jus ad Bellum – What is being protected must be worth more than what is being harmed
            • The harm caused by a particular military action carried out during war must not be disproportionate with the contribution of the attack/action to victory in the overall war
        • Principle of Due Care
    • Resource Conflicts
      • Conflicts based on Subsistence needs
        • Conflicts arise for diminishing resources or for access to resources
          • Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone
            • The Global Policy Forum consider these conflicts resource conflicts
        • Likelihood of resource conflicts are more likely in developing countries
          • Mass globalisation and rapid population growth has led contribute to this
            • As a result, there is increased competition for these resources
              • Samset (2009) has placed a weak correlation with scarcity of resources and conflicts
      • Conflicts have arisen on an international level
        • Middle East
          • Jordan River Basin (1964-67)
          • Tigris-Euphrates Basin
          • War-fare in Iraq
        • Africa
          • Volta River
          • Zambezi River
          • Niger Basin
          • Nile River Basin
        • Asia
          • Indus River Basin
          • Ganges River
      • Israeli Jordan Water War 1964-1967
        • Israel’s National Water Carrier project siphoned water from the Sea of Galilee
          • Arab states decreased the National Water Carrier capacity by 35% by diverting the Jordan River (Hasbani and Banias) to the Yarmouk River. 
            • Escalations took place in 1964: Israel declared the Diversion Project as an infringement on its sovereign rights.
              • 1965: Syria-Israeli border shootings of Israeli farmers led to Israeli military destroying machinery that was used for the diversion plan. 
                • Control of water resources and the military escalation against the diversion effort are among the factors which led to the 6-Day War of 1967.
      • Increasing water wars
        • The Middle East has 6% of the worlds population
          • However it only has access to 2% of the worlds renewable water supply
            • 12 of the world’s most water scarce countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Libya, Oman, the Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen are in the MENA region
              • MENA: Middle East & North Africa
              • Most MENA countries cannot sustainably meet their current water demand. Based on population growth and increased demand, water availability per capita is expected to be halved by 2050.
    • Climate Change as a security threat
      • Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change
        • There's a delicate balance between society and the environment
        • Burke et. al. found 50% increase in armed conflict between 1981 and 2002: ‘urgent need to reform African governments’ and  foreign aid donors’ policies to deal with rising temperatures.’ 
          • Buhuag (2010) finds no significant causal correlation between civil wars  and climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past fifty years
            • •‘climate variability is a  poor predictor of armed conflict. Instead, African civil wars can be  explained by generic structural and contextual conditions:  widespread ethno-political exclusion, poor national economy, and  the collapse of the Cold War system.’
            • A growing body of theoretical and empirical research suggests a link between climate change and increased violent conflict
              • Counter-claims to this suggest climate change does not significantly increase violent conflict, and can even increase peace and stability
                • Hsiang, Burke and Miguel (2013) - based on the  analyses of 60 quantitative studies 
                  • ‘strong causal evidence  linking climatic events to human conflict across a range of spatial  and temporal scales and across all major regions of the world.’ 
                  • but  these findings have already been criticised and challenged by  Raleigh et.al. (2014).
      • Securitisation: According to the Copenhagen School “an object being qualified as an existential threat, and thus raises that objects importance, simultaneously increasing awareness of, and attention for, it, and also allowing for the suspension when necessary of normal political behaviour (Wæver 1995)”. 
        • •Securitising non-traditional objects as existential threats legitimises the use of exceptional measures.
      • Climate change as a threat to human security
        • Food rights
        • Subsistence rights
        • Threat to citizenship or livelihood
        • Climate related migration
        • Clear danger
        • Kiribati
          • “Our future is actually written.  It is written on the wall that the sea level will rise and it will affect our islands…the international community cannot ignore that” – Anote Tong 
            • Sea levels predicted to rise 3.3 metres
              • Complete loss of Kiribati land
                • War of self defence?
                • Who's responsible?
          • New Zealand offered to host fleeing migrants
            • What nationality would new Kiribati children be?
              • Land is still New Zealand's
    • Climate Change
      • Climate change is an anthropocentric process
        • IPCC (2013): 95% likely that 50% of climate change is anthropocentric
          • Anthropocentric means human causes
      • El Nino/La Nina effect
        • Dry El  Niño years double the risk of  armed conflict in tropical    countries heavily affected by  the El Niño/Southern Oscillation,  compared to the  cooler La  Niña phase (Hsiang et al. (2011).
          • 20% of the nearly 250 conflicts happening between  1950 and 2004 in these regions, can be linked to the 4  to 7 year ENSO cycle.
        • El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a period of irregular changes in wind and sea temperatures

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