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Kenya

Climate change and conflict, a perfect storm

“The expansion of ungoverned territories would in turn increase the risks of terrorism,” with large numbers of marginalised and disenfranchised people to recruit from, said the report compiled for policymakers.

Negotiators from 195 nations will gather in Paris until December 11 to craft a pact to stave off worst-case-scenario climate change by limiting emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases.

The goal is to limit warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid-19th century levels, when industrial-scale emissions began.

Even a 2 C increase will mean a land-gobbling sea level rise, longer and more frequent droughts, and increasingly acute water shortages, scientists say. But the projected impacts worsen significantly beyond the two degree threshold.

A recent report by the Washington-based World Resources Institute warned that “high water stress” in Syria and its neighbours “will likely deteriorate in the coming decades.”

“A well-documented path can connect water scarcity to food insecurity, social instability and potentially violent conflict,” it said, adding that “climate change amplifies scarcity worries.”

Earlier this month, Toby Lanzer, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, warned that Europe’s migrant crisis will become worse if the Paris climate summit fails countries in the drought-stricken Lake Chad basin.

Some 2.5 million people in the region have been displaced by a toxic mix of drought, poverty and conflict.

An estimated 850,000 migrants have entered the European Union so far this year, mainly from the Middle East and North Africa.

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– ‘Increasing evidence’ –

“There is increasing evidence … that there may be a statistically-significant correlation between climate change and conflict,” Femia said.

This was borne out, he said, “in places like Kenya, where a changing climate has been linked to conflicts between pastoralists and farmers, and in Syria, where a mass internal displacement of people may be connected to political turmoil.”

President Francois Hollande of climate summit host France, also linked climate and conflict in a magazine interview this week.

“Even if we solve the problem of Syria, we will still be confronted with the migration of millions of people forced to move because they can’t cultivate their land,” he told l’Express.

“This disorder can engender new conflicts.”

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