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Submarine explorers planting Russian flags under the North Pole. Military tension between Nato and Russia. US diplomats manoeuvring in the wings. Aircraft carriers lurking and strike fighters changing hands.

Sound like something from a James Bond plot? Unfortunately it’s not.

New Wikileaks releases today have shown the Arctic oil rush is not just a threat to the environment and our climate, but also to peace.

The documents show how deadly serious the scramble for Arctic resources has become.

And the terrible irony of it is that instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, the leaders of the Arctic nations are instead investing in military hardware to fight for the oil beneath it. They’re preparing to fight to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place. It’s like putting out fire with petrol.

Here are some of the main points from the leaked cables but stay tuned – there are more to come.

Increased military threats

The Arctic oil rush risks instability and conflict. In one of the cables, US diplomats refer to “the potential of increased military threats in the Arctic”.

Russian Ambassador to Nato is quoted as saying “The twenty-first century will see a fight for resources, and Russia should not be defeated in this fight… Nato has sense where the wind comes from. It comes from the North.”

In April 2008, Russian Navy head and Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky said “While in the Arctic there is peace and stability, however, one cannot exclude that in the future there will be a redistribution of power, up to armed intervention.”

Russian flag planting is Putin party’s idea

Russia is manoeuvring to claim ownership over huge swathes of the Arctic, as a senior Moscow source reveals that a Russian explorer’s famous expedition to plant a flag on the seabed was ordered by Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.

Lobbying for the Greenlanders

The US is going to great lengths to cosy up to Greenland, amid concerns over Chinese influence. One cable said: “Our intensified outreach to the Greenlanders will encourage them to resist any false choice between the United States and Europe. It will also strengthen our relationship with Greenland vis-à-vis the Chinese, who have shown increasing interest in Greenland’s natural resource.”

Another cable says “with Greenlandic independence glinting on the horizon, the U.S. has a unique opportunity to shape the circumstances to which an independent nation may emerge. We have real security and growing economic interests in Greenland, for which existing mechanisms may no longer be sufficient. American commercial investments, our continuing strategic military presence, and new high-level scientific and political interest in Greenland argue for establishing a small and seasonal American Presence Post in Greenland’s capital as soon as practicable.”

Tensions in Nato

Canadian leaders are uneasy over Nato plans to project military force in the Arctic in the face of perceived Russian aggression. Steven Harper, Canadian PM is quoted as saying that a Nato presence in the region would give non-Arctic members too much influence in an area where “they don’t belong”.

Justifying military spending

The Norwegian foreign minister thanked his Russian counterpart Lavrov “for making it so much easier to justify the Joint Strike Fighter purchase to the Norwegian public, given Russia’s regular military flights up and down Norway’s coast.”

The ‘benefits’ from global warming

Another cable states that “behind Russia’s (Arctic) policy are two potential benefits accruing from global warming: the prospect for an (even-seasonally) ice-free shipping route from Europe to Asia, and the estimated oil and gas wealth hidden beneath the Arctic sea floor.”

Stay out and miss out

Danish foreign minister Moeller is reported saying to US diplomats that “if you stay out” [of a key maritime convention] “then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the Arctic.”

They go on to report that “Moeller also mused that the new shipping routes [open because of ice melt] and natural resource discoveries would eventually place the region at the centre of world politics”

The cables were published today at on the website www.wikileaks.ch

Watch a BBC Newsnight video about the story here.

Article source: Greenpeace UK

Image source: U.S. Geological Survey

 

A 1960 trans-boundary water sharing agreement between India and Pakistan has stood the test of two wars and various periods of unease. Climate change, however, may prove the toughest test of the Indus River deal, observers say. The two rival South Asian nations share the 190 billion cubic meters of Himalayan snowmelt that course through the Indus each year. The river originates from India’s Himalayan Hindu Kush mountains and flows through Jammu and Kashmir and then through Pakistan to reach the Arabian Sea. But experts say that climate change could alter the timing and rate of snow melt, with an initial increase in annual runoff followed eventually by a steep decrease that will severely curb river flows.

CONFLICT OVER RIVERS?

That could provoke conflict between the two nations, particularly as India develops dams along the upper riches of the Indus, raising questions in Pakistan over whether falling water availability is due to climate change or to India’s reservoirs. A 2009 World Bank report “South Asia: Shared views on Development and Climate Change,” says the two South Asian monsoon-dependant agri-economies may be in for big upsets as a result of climate change. “Upstream or downstream, we (India and Pakistan) are in the same boat,” said Hameed Ullah Jan Afridi, Pakistan’s federal minister for environment, at a recent workshop in Islamabad on cross-border water scarcity and climate change. The tortuously negotiated 1960 water-sharing treaty owes its roots to the 1947 separation of India and Pakistan into separate countries. It gives India rights to the natural flow of water of the Indus’ three eastern tributaries – the Ravi, Sutlej and Beas – while Pakistan controls the main Indus channel itself and two western rivers, the Jhelum and Chenab. But determining what amount of water constitutes a river’s natural flow is growing more difficult as climate change affects glacial runoff and the monsoon. Pakistan has increasingly raised concerns about data sharing and transparency, particularly because the upper reaches of all of the rivers lie in Indian-controlled territory, giving that nation greater scope for control of the entire Indus river system.

LACK OF ALTERNATIVE SOURCES

Pakistan’s anxieties stem in large part from its lack of alternative water resources. Seventy-seven percent of its population survives on water from the Indus basin. High levels of poverty and population density also render both countries particularly vulnerable to climate change-related water shortages, said Munawar Saeed Bhatti, of Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs. The changes threaten to have a strong impact on agriculture in both nations as well. Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns will alter crop yields and growing seasons, and a predicted increase in more extreme storms, rainfall and drought could cut harvests, according to the U.N. Environmental Programme. Experts believe new pests and diseases also will emerge, and could contribute to seriously impacting food security in both nations. Pakistan’s meteorological department has already recorded a 10 to15 percent decrease in winter and summer rainfall in the country’s coastal belt and arid plains, with a temperature rise of 0.6 to 1.0 degree Celsius over historical levels, officials said. Per capita water availability in Pakistan has dropped in last 50 years from 5,600 cubic metres to 1,038 cubic meters today. By 2025 it is predicted to be 809 cubic meters, according to the Pakistan government’s Water and Power Development Authority. Humid areas of Pakistan, meanwhile, have seen an 18 to 32 percent increase in monsoon rainfall. In India and Pakistan, 70 percent of rain falls during monsoon periods, which cover four months of the year.

TAKING ACTION

In Pakistan’s western Himalayan foothills, where farmers rely on glacial melt from the Karakoram range and year-round rainfall, both water sources are now reducing. Fruit farmers in the area, such as 65-year-old Muhamud Riyaz, have already responded by harvesting summer stream water into 3,000 litre gravity-fed storage tanks. “When I was a boy, summer came but mounds of snow at the foot of thick foliage trees would sit there, melting slowly, keeping the soil moist until the summer rains came. Since the last two years, the snow is just a thin layer and it rains only in monsoons,” Riyaz said. In other areas, flooding is the problem. Pakistan records floods almost every year now, and in India the area affecting by flooding more than doubled between 1953 and 2003, and currently represent about 11 percent of its geographic area, according to the World Bank. Even in areas that regularly flood, “high frequency, low intensity flood events have now turned into high intensity, high frequency floods,” said Daanish Mustafa, a water specialist and geography professor at London’s Kings College. River siltation is contributing to the problem, he said. The problems facing both sides of the India-Pakistan border are particularly bad because “water management is literally a little above Stone Age,” said Richard Garstang, national programme manager of Pakistan’s wetlands programme. Up to 30 percent of water is lost from the country’s unlined irrigation canals, experts said. The country has some 16 million hectares of irrigated farmland, one of the largest contiguous irrigated areas in the world. Poor water management is to a great extent responsible for Pakistan’s water woes, a 2006 World Bank report noted. It warned that ground water is being over exploited and 20 million tonnes of salt has accumulated in the water system.

AQUIFERS BEING DEPLETED

“Half a million vertical wells in the Indus basin are depleting aquifers faster than they can be replenished,” Mustafa said. Agriculture accounts for half of total fresh water use in Pakistan. “Due to a combination of age and ‘build/neglect/rebuild’ philosophy of public works, much of the infrastructure is crumbling,” the World Bank report said. Indian officials have attributed Pakistan’s water woes in part to a dearth of water storage infrastructure, noting that a huge 38 million acre-feet of fresh water goes un-utilized into the Arabian Sea every year.

Manipadma Jena is a Reuters AlertNet correspondent and freelance development journalist based in Bhubaneswar, India

Source: Reuters AlertNet

Image source: stevehicks

The Asian Development Bank has recently published a report on the effects of climate change on migration in and from the continent. Although migration need not necessarily be a security concern, people can be propelled to move for reasons of personal safety, such as extreme weather events, or livelihood insecurity caused by long-term land degradation or river salination. This report provides a useful perspective on climate change, representing the conclusions drawn by an organisation from the region most likely to suffer the harshest consequences. The following is taken from the introduction. To read the full report, click here

 

Addressing Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific

This report concludes an Asian Development Bank (ADB) project initiated in 2010 to develop policy responses to climate-induced migration in Asia and the Pacific. It is one of a series of ADB publications shedding light on the forecasted impacts of climate change on the countries and people of Asia and the Pacific. The report examines how climate change will affect migration patterns in Asia and the Pacific, and identifies various policy interventions and funding vehicles that can help manage the emerging phenomenon of climate-induced migration.

The displacement of people due to environmental events has received increased attention in recent years, yet much uncertainty remains about the way populations will actually react to long-term environmental change. The relationship between climate change and migration flows is often thought to be of a deterministic nature, where all populations living in regions affected by climate change would be forced to relocate. Many empirical studies show, however, that this relationship is far more complex, and is compounded by a wide range of social, economic, and political factors (Foresight 2011; Jäger et al. 2009).

More than two decades ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that “one of the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration” (McTegart, Sheldon, and Griffiths 1990). Today, as the effects of climate change intensify, action is needed in two different directions. Mitigation of greenhouse gases needs to remain a priority, as it is the only way the challenge of climate change can be tackled at source. At the same time, it is important to recognize that some impacts of climate change are already happening, and will become more pronounced in the future.

Environmental changes in general, and those associated with climate change in particular, are increasingly recognized as growing drivers of migration across the world. Because of the unavoidability of these impacts, mitigation alone will not suffice to fight climate change; it needs to be complemented by adaptation measures. Adaptation seeks to alleviate the impacts of climate change by increasing the resilience of people and communities to these impacts. Though mitigation and adaptation measures once used to be seen as two possible alternatives, it is now recognized that both will need to be implemented in order to fight climate change.

In Asia and the Pacific, large numbers of people are displaced every year due to floods, droughts, soil degradation, typhoons, and cyclones. Poor people suffer a disproportionate share of deaths, displacement, and damage associated with such events. Forced by poverty to inhabit the low-lying coastal deltas, river banks, flood plains, steep slopes, and degraded urban environments where the impact is most severe, they are least able to rebuild when their homes and communities are battered by extreme weather. Though the region is expected to be profoundly impacted by climate change in the coming decades, it is also expected to undergo other significant social, political, and economic transformations. Thus, migration behaviors are likely to be influenced by this wide range of transformations, ranging from climate change to cheaper travel. Public policies, including adaptation strategies and migration management, will also play a determining role in the nature and extent of the movement of people.

This report considers long-term environmental change as a growing driver of migration. Climate change will accentuate the impact of the environment on human displacement. Migration flows associated with the environment will be intertwined with broader migration dynamics, and therefore should not be considered in isolation. Understanding environmental migration as part of a global transformation process constitutes a major ambition of this work, as well as a necessary condition for sound migration and adaptation policies.

Image Source: Amirjina

Most of the States whose support would be required to establish a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction have already signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO told a seminar in Brussels, 7 July.

The creation of such a zone would rest on “a tripod,” its legs consisting of a ban on nuclear weapons, no misuse of fissile material and no nuclear testing, said Tóth. The CTBT would meet the last requirement.

And the “good news,” he told the seminar, organized by the European Union, is the almost complete endorsement in the region of the Treaty, which is approaching nearly complete global assent and becoming a universal norm.

The “very good news” is that three of the last nine States whose ratification of the Treaty is required to bring it into force, Egypt, Israel and Iran, (the others are  China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), India, Indonesia, Pakistan and the United States) are in the region, he said.

“None of these States have said no to the Treaty, all of them have signed and subscribed to the norm,” Tóth told the seminar, called to discuss the prospects for a Middle East WMD free zone. It was attended by representatives of Middle East States including Egypt, Iran and Israel. Other States represented included China, the Russian Federation and the United States.

The CTBT is a confidence building tool

“The CTBT with its multilateral democratic nature and highly valuable verification technologies stands as a practical and confidence building tool for the establishment of the zone,” Tóth said.

He said the Treaty offers the Middle East “a big tent,” that enshrines a test ban in a global regime and the region can capture the spirit of partnership and collaboration that runs through the Treaty and its global verification system.

The Treaty’s verification system is a “Swiss Army knife” with multiple uses, demonstrated after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It provided warning of the tsunami and tracked radioactive fallout from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

“It is an unprecedented universal investment of capital in a verification regime and it is owned by everyone,” Tóth said. 

Article source: CTBTO Preparatory Commission

Image source: United Nations Photo

New Report Highlights the Links between Poverty, Marginalisation and Terrorism

A new report on the causes of terrorism has been released by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. The report provides a critical survey of the relevant academic literature and demonstrates the link between marginalisation and levels of political violence and terrorism. 

The study focuses primarily on theories that seek to explain why some societies are more exposed to terrorism than others, i.e. theories on a national or societal level of analysis. It also examines theoretical frameworks for explaining terrorism on an international or world system level of analysis. The report underscores the importance of understanding terrorism in its political and societal contexts. 

The report concludes: 

The fact that terrorists themselves are often well-educated and even wealthy does not disprove any correlation between terrorism and poverty at a country-wide level. Furthermore, the recruitment of operatives and suicide bombers by a terrorist organisation involves a careful selection and screening process, which most likely favours well-educated middle class youth. This does not disprove widespread support for the same organisations among the poor. More importantly, ideologies embraced by terrorist organisations exhort the individual to act on behalf of the workers, the masses, the Islamic umma, the ethnic community in question, etc. Hence, societal ills and injustices suffered by the community, ranging from political oppression and humiliation to poverty and dispossession, become the driving forces for terrorist groups, even if the members themselves may be relatively prosperous within their own societies.

The full report, Causes of Terrorism: An Expanded and Updated Review of the Literature can be accessed here.

“Rather than climate change being this single, direct causal factor which will spark conflict at the national level” Vivekananda said, these stressors “will shift the tipping point at which conflict might ignite”. In places that are already weakened by instability and conflict, climate change will simply be an additional challenge.

Source: youtube

In the months and years after the 9/11 attacks, a series of analyses published by Oxford Research Group offered a critical perspective on the war on terror, arguing that the forceful military response was both wrong and dangerous. It could even prove highly counterproductive to US security interests and would certainly do little to promote international peace and stability. While the response to 9/11 was readily understandable, given the appalling nature of the attacks but also the neoconservative overtones of the Bush administration, it was argued that it was deeply mistaken and would lead to a long period of war.

This perspective has stood the test of time. Moreover, the experience of the eight years since 9/11 supports a wider ORG analysis of global security that argues that there is a need for a fundamental rethinking of those current approaches to security that focus primarily on military instruments. Instead, the major global trends of a wider socio-economic divide, mass marginalisation and environmental constraints all require an approach rooted in what is now being termed sustainable security.

This paper examines the context of the decision to go to war after 9/11 and the anticipated results. It goes on to analyse the actual  consequences and seeks to explain why they have been so radically different to original expectations by the United States and its closest coalition partners such as the UK. The paper then updates the analysis of the major global challenges that Oxford Research Group has previously discussed and the need for a new paradigm focused on sustainable security. It concludes by assessing how the experience of the eight years that have followed the 9/11 atrocities might make a change of paradigm more likely.

Excerpt from Global Security after the War on Terror.

 The full briefing is available here.

On 9th November the Institute for Environmental Security organised the fourth in a series of events at the European Parliament run in collaboration with Nirj Deva, MEP, Vice President of the European Parliament Development Committee.

The speaker was Jason Blackstock, a Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and Visiting Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna. His subject was Towards Climate Security & Equity in 2020: Rapid Climate Change, Short-lived Forcers & Geoengineering.

Jason Blackstock stressed the urgency of understanding rapid climate change and in particular the impact of short lived climate forcers other than the greenhouse gasses dealt with by the UNFCCC.

Turning to geoengineering, Mr Blackstock argued that this could no longer be ignored by those negotiating on climate change. Technologies were now being developed that could cheaply alter aspects of the climate. He was at pains to point out that climate interactions are complex and difficult to predict. For example, spraying sulphates in the atmosphere would reduce the rise in global temperature, but it would be impossible to estimate the regional consequences on rainfall.

“Because of their potential to radically alter the climate system in a matter of years, rather than decades, the lack of adequate international governance for short-lived forcers, such as black carbon, and geoengineering present among the most serious climate security challenges we face today. At this moment we have no plan for handling the global governance aspects”.

Nirj Diva, MEP and Tom Spencer cross examined Mr Blackstock, who then answered lively questions from parliamentarians, parliamentary staff, NATO and the European Defence Agency.

Source: Institute for Environmental Security

Image Source: davedehetre

China’s development of a space programme threatens to increase Sino-US tension as the latter’s dominance of space, with all its military and commercial potential, is undermined.

China’s sky-high space ambitions have the potential to upset the current world order. Within the coming decade, China may become capable of challenging America’s dominance over space and its monopoly over global navigational systems.

Over the past few years, China has engaged in completing high-profile, grand projects like high-speed rail, the world’s biggest airport terminal (since overtaken by Dubai) and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Its space programme, like all else, is a matter of Chinese prestige. On successful completion, it will be yet another grand feather in China’s cap signalling its ambition of becoming a world power.

China’s ambitious space programme has three tracks. Track one is the setting up of China’s own space station. The Chinese were successful in launching their first astronaut or taikonaut into space in 2003. Since then, China’s space programme has witnessed major breakthroughs. By summer 2011, it plans to launch its first unmanned space module called ‘Tiangong – 1’. The ‘Shenzhou – 8’, scheduled for later this year (2011), will attempt to dock with the ‘Tiangong – 1’. Both these launches are the initial stages of Chinese plans for setting up a space station by 2015. Once its space station is completed, China will become the third country in the world, after Russia and the US to do so with indigenous technology.

The second track is China’s lunar ambitions, scheduled to be carried out over three phases. The first phase of this was successfully completed in October 2010 with the launch of the “Chang’e – 2” lunar orbiter. By 2020, China could actually land its first astronaut on the moon. The third track of its space programme involves the development of a Chinese global navigational system called ‘Beidou’. Until now, the US has had a monopoly over navigation systems with its global positioning system (GPS). China aims to make ‘Beidou’ available to Asia-Pacific by 2012, which will go global by 2020.

China’s programme could have repercussions for the Sino-US relationship. Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent US visit resulted in a number of trade and investment deals being inked between the two countries. However, space was not one of them even though according to Washington, the 4 main areas of potential cooperation with China include space alongside cyber-security, missile defense and nuclear weapons. But since mutual trust is important for any kind of cooperation between the two nations, space is a ‘no-go’.

The US and Chinese space programmes cannot be compared directly. The American programme precedes China’s by at least 40 years and China has yet to land its first man on moon. The US satellite and spacecraft technology is still years ahead of China. But China is on the fast track right now. In 2011 alone, China aims to put more than twenty vehicles into space. Compared to this, the US space programme is in a state of inertia. It has had to scrap its ‘Constellation Program’ since the struggling American economy cannot afford the huge price tag attached to the programme at present.

Details of the Chinese space programme remain undisclosed and even its civilian component is run primarily by its military. For the US, this limits strategic cooperation to a large extent. The US is also wary of China’s growing military ambitions. China has recently tested its first stealth fighter aircraft. Since space technology almost always has military uses like missile development and remote monitoring and control, it is likely that a successful space programme in China would bolster its military and naval prowess. Hence, the US is clearly uneasy about the programme even though the administration has downplayed reports of China’s goal of a manned moon mission.  

For China, the US skepticism over its space programme as well as its ban on high-tech exports to China is a hurdle to cooperation in space. The navigational system ‘Beidou’ is crucial for the Chinese military as presently it has to depend on the US GPS. The Chinese fear is that this GPS could be blocked or manipulated in case of a conflict.

The US is also jittery because of fears of technology proliferation since China’s allies include countries like Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. Supremacy in space would also aid China in elevating it to the status of a global superpower. Commercially too, an advanced space programme could eventually result in China being first in the race to extract lunar resources like uranium and titanium.

Over the next few years, it is unlikely that the speed of China’s progress in its space programme will go down. Also, as it achieves its goals, China’s programme will definitely make many countries around the world nervous. Hence, with each of China’s successes, the world will see other countries taking frantic action to catch up with it. It is also possible that with a robust and thriving space programme in its kitty, China may be the next nation to be included in International Space Station (ISS). Such a situation may lessen the atmosphere of mutual suspicion to a certain degree.

Image source: Matthew Simantov

Article source: openDemocracy

 “Security Net” is a scenario for a future Nuclear Risk Reduction Regime in Southern Asia.  It  explores what such a regime might look like, how it might come into existence, what are its central challenges, and what might be its ramifications for nuclear proliferation and non-proliferation policy in Southern Asia today.

This study examines the idea of a “Southern Asia” itself and considers the differences between the relationship  of  regional identity  formation  to  nuclear  non-proliferation in Southern Asia in comparison  to  Southeast  Asia  and  Latin America.  It then considers what sort of internal drivers,  wild  cards,  or outside forces could create  incentives for regional cooperation on Nuclear RiskReduction in Southern Asia the future.  

The full article can be accessed here.

Image source:  jmuhles