Global Warming Induces Global Wars?

The Last Polar Bear

It is an unusually warm summer in 2045. A polar bear wanders across the depleting ice floes of the Arctic. It has been months since he has seen another of his kind. His traditional prey of seals, sea-lions and penguins have disappeared long ago, obliterated by crashing ice sheets and the vanishing glaciers. He is the last of his species, although he does not know it. As the dwindling ice floe melts the bear is sucked into the fathomless depth of the Atlantic.

One more species had been claimed by the effects of global warming.

Other species were also feeling its effects. The Maldives, a sovereign island nation in the Indian Ocean had disappeared under the rising sea by 2035, its population joining the ranks of displaced “climate refugees”. In New York and Mumbai, the oceans had been creeping inwards with each passing year. In Bangladesh, in the Sunderbans,  thousands of islands had been swamped by the sea.  The melting ice caps had raised sea levels by almost two metres, enough to inundate low-lying land on the coastline and displace millions from their traditional homes. With rising temperatures, crops had failed causing hunger riots across nations.  It had also spawned billions of mosquitoes, flies and insects and destroyed entire species of fish, birds and mammals as the fragile ecosystem of the planet collapsed. Food and water – the two most essential element of mankind were in short supply and wars raged across the planet to gain control of this scarce resource.

The scenario though bleak, is plausible. Mankind is losing the war against global warming. Many scientists have called this the greatest disaster to hit the earth. Unless global warning is controlled and its effect reversed, the consequences may engulf the entire planet into global wars for resources and habitable land.

Global Warming, Global War

Since mankind began, virtually all battles have been for control of resources. The first conflict perhaps took place when two tribes squabbled over a watering hole or maybe a particularly lucrative patch of arable land.  The 16th century saw the major powers fighting for spices, silks and the rich resources of the East, the 20th century was a squabble for oil which continues even today. Now, in the 21st century, global warming may result in global wars over the most basic resource – water and food.

Traditionally, whenever mankind has faced shortages of food and water, it has seen a stream of migrations toward more fertile areas. These migrations invariably brought conflict between the established settlements and the migrants. With rising sea lands, destruction of arable land and drying up of water resources we may see migration of unprecedented scales and with it conflict of unprecedented levels.    
 
The figures speak for themselves. Water levels have risen by two inches in the past century – yet if this level of warming continues it will rise by almost ½ a metre by 2050. Islands in the Pacific such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tonga Islands and thousand others will disappear beneath the sea. Closer home, the Maldives which is just 5 feet above sea level will have 4,50,000 people displaced by 2020. Already the government of Maldives has made plans to buy land in India, Australia and Asia to house its population when the islands disappear and has conducted a unique undersea conference of its leaders to highlight the problem. Today, 600 million people live in low-lying coastal areas of which 448 million are in Asia alone. As their land disappear and the soil inland becomes unusable due to salinity, the population will be forced inland, starting a long migration of “Climate Refugees”. 

 Arable land too is fast depleting due to reduced water availability at the rate of 5 to 10 million hectares annually. Global warming has affected crop yields with a one degree rise in temperature leading to reductions of crop yield by 10 per cent. A three degrees rise can reduce yield by 40 per cent. Mass migrations have already begun in Saharan North Africa, where lack of food and water has displaced over 5 million people bringing them into conflict with the inhabitants of the area. Estimates say that in the 1990 these were 25 million environmental refugees the world over. This figure will rise to 50 million by 2010 and to 150 million by 2020. Beyond that the figures are too heart-rending to comprehend.

History has shown that when there are environmental changes, internal strife follows. The 1971 liberation of Bangladesh followed directly in the aftermath of the 1970 cyclone. The long drawn civil strife in Darfur is the result of years of continual drought. Internal strife in nations hit by climatic changes will intensify and this strife in invariably spill across borders.

South Asia , the Maldives, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and large parts of peninsular India will  be the worst affected by rising sea levels. Yet what may precipitate conflict will be the scarcity of our most basic resource – water. The beautiful Himalayan glaciers will vanish by 2035 and with it the source of water supply to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. The “Water Towers of Asia” hold the world’s largest reservoir of water besides the polar ice caps and feed the great river systems of the Brahmaputra, the Indus and the Yangste – around which a quarter of the world’s population is dependent. Already the world’s highest battlefield – the Siachen Glacier is shrinking to almost half of its size. Its loss will affect Pakistan not merely in the strategic sense but in the worst possible way, since the Nubra and Shyok rivers that feed the Indus originate here. The decline of the Gangotri glacier will turn the Ganges and the Brahmaputra into seasonal rivulets and the melting of the Kolhoi glacier will turn the green picturesque Kashmir valley into a desert. 

China, with amazing farsightedness has laid claim to the Tibetan plateau and seized control of its vast resources of water and minerals. Today, it virtually holds a hand over the faucet and is going ahead with the construction of massive dams to divert the waters of the Brahmaputra, the Sutlej and the Indus toward the Chinese mainland at the expense of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. With the source of water supply from the glaciers having been radically reduced, this diversion of scarce water resources is a potential flashpoint for future war.

Also imagine the bleak picture of millions of climate refugees from Bangladesh or Pakistan trickling into India as their land disappears and their food and water resources deplete.  The border fence will be of no resistance to hordes of hungry, desperate families with nothing to lose.  There will be a potential cause of ethnic and internal strife between the refugees and the people they displace   

There is one more way in which global warming can lead to wars.  The melting ice caps of the Arctic and the Antarctic regions will now make the areas accessible and open up the vast resources that lie beneath.  Around 25 per cent of the world’s oil and gas resources are known to be trapped beneath the ice-cap. As they became accessible, the US, Russia, the EU, Canada, India and China will lay claim to them and it may generate a conflict for resources as was witnessed during the colonial wars of the 18th century. Also, think of a scenario, if melting glaciers of the Himalayas reveal vast deposits of oil, natural gas and minerals straddling the already disputed areas between India China and Pakistan. Will it not further raise the bar in India’s tense neighbourhood?

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).