Climate change a new factor in global tensions: EU

BRUSSELS (AFP) – The risks of climate change have turned from a threat to reality impacting the conflict in Darfur, migration from flood-prone Bangladesh and hopes for stability in the Middle East, according to a new EU report.

From Africa to Asia, and from pole to pole, climate change has become “a threat multiplier which exacerbates existing trends, tensions and instability,” warns the seven-page report on “Climate change and international security”, to be presented to a European summit in Brussels on March 13-14.


Among the listed threats are “reduction of arable land, widespread shortage of water, diminishing food and fish stocks, increased flooding and prolonged droughts.”

These problems, according to the report drawn up by the offices of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, “are already happening in many parts of the world”.

Even a temperature rise of two degrees Celsius by 2050 “will pose serious security risks”.

AFP