ISSUE46: JUNE-AUGUST 2007
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Global warming increases risk of conflict – Bogardi
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On the eve of the first UN Security Council debate on climate change in April, the director of UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), Janos Bogardi (right), warned that droughts, floods and rising seas linked to global warming increases the potential for conflict in coming decades.
"The most imminent effect is probably desertification and land degradation," Bogardi said, adding that UNU-EHS has projected that climate change might force hundreds of millions of people from their homes in the long term.
Bogardi said that the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, where 200 000 people have died, was "probably the most prominent example" of a conflict partly caused by land degradation.
In the longer term, rising seas caused by melting icecaps and glaciers could swamp large tracts of countries such as Bangladesh, forcing millions to migrate and raising the chances of conflicts over shrinking land.
© 2007 United Nations University