Transcript Christoph Bals: Climate Change as Security Issue

Climate Change as Security Issue
- does this mean:
more efficient climate policy or
more security against refugees?
Christoph Bals, Germanwatch Session, EFMSV, Bonn
9 October 2008
Topicality
• We see a tendency to more environmental refugees and climate change might become (or is already
becoming) a dominant trigger of this tendency
• In Europe (Schengen) and the US: we see the
tendency to move and "secure" the borders
• Strategies of companies and states: Move human
right issues out of the visible zone
- Human right issues (and relevant pictures) are
moved to the supply chain and geographically to
African / Latin American countries
Our responsibilities
• Do we have more or other responsibility than
to safeguard our borders?
• To support adaptation strategies to prevent
refugees - based on the right to food / water
• To support regional strategies to deal with
refugees in a constructive way?
• To mitigate conflicts?
• To give climate refugees an official refugee
status?
• To think about contingents of climate
refugees for industrialized countries - based
on responsibility and capability?
The scientific basis
What can science deliver as a basis for a sound political
discussion?
Lots of open questions regarding
• definitions
• statistics
• concepts to minimize social vulnerability
• the attempts to combine this with the adaptation
debate of the UN climate negotiations
• climate as a security issue - which calls for
partnership and not military solutions (both for
greenhouse gas reduction and for adaptation / risk
reduction / migration prevention / migration
strategies).
Is science ready to address these questions?