Transcript Climate change and instability in the Middle East

A Catch 22 or an Opportunity?
Climate change and instability in the Middle East and North Africa
The cases of Syria and Egypt
Francesco Femia and Caitlin E. Werrell
Co-Directors
The Center for Climate and Security
www.climateandsecurity.org
Climate-Water-Food Nexus
•
Climate Change manifests itself
primarily through water and food
•
Admiral Titley, USN (ret): “It’s all
about the water”
– Variability
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Too much
Too little
Wrong place, wrong time
Wet where it was dry
Dry where it was wet
Drier where it was dry
Salty where it was fresh
Change in chemistry
And the food: Increased water
insecurity due to climate variability,
both globally and in the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA), has a
significant effect on food security in
the region
Syria: Drought
• 2007-2010: Worst drought
in Syria’s history of
records
• 2011 Global Assessment
Report on Disaster Risk
Reduction (GAR):
– Farmers: Of those
most vulnerable, 75%
suffer total crop
failure
– Herders in northeast:
Lose 85% of their
livestock, affecting 1.3
million people
Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) (-1 = moderate drought; -2 = extreme drought).
Drought, Five-year Scale, Syria from 2006 to 2012
Source: Werrell, Femia and Sternberg, “Did We See it Coming? State Fragility, Climate
Vulnerability, and the Uprisings in Syria and Egypt,” SAIS Review of International Affairs,
Volume 35, Number 1, Winter-Spring 2015, pp. 29-46
Source: W. Erian et al., Drought Vulnerability in the Arab Region Special Case Study: Syria (Geneva: United Nations
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2010), pp11.
Livelihoods decimated
• 2009 UN and IFRC: 800,000 Syrians lost entire
livelihood as a result of the droughts
• 2010 UN: 2-3 million driven into extreme poverty
• 2011 GAR: 1 million Syrians left
“extremely food insecure” by droughts
Source: F. Femia and C. Werrell, 2012. ‘Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest’, The Center for
Climate and Security, 29 Feb. 2012.
Internal displacement
• October 2010: UN estimates 50,000 families
migrated from rural areas just that year, “on top of
the hundreds of thousands of people who fled in
earlier years.”
• January 2011: crop failures just in farming villages
around Aleppo lead “200,000 rural villagers to leave
for the cities.”
• Total 2007-2011: 1.3 – 1.5 million people displaced,
most move to urban areas.
Source: F. Femia and C. Werrell, 2012. ‘Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest’, The Center for
Climate and Security, 29 Feb. 2012.
Climate change
•
2011 NOAA: High likelihood winter drying
from 1971-2010 in Mediterranean littoral
and Middle East linked to climate change.
Syria one of driest.
•
2015 Kelley et al: 2007-2010 drought 2-3x
more likely due to climate change
•
IFPRI climate model: If current rates of
global greenhouse gas emissions
continue, yields of rainfed crops in Syria
may decline “between 29 and 57 percent
from 2010 to 2050.”
Sources:
M. Hoerling et al., “On the Increased Frequency of Mediterranean Drought,”
Journal of Climate 25 (2012), pp.2146–61.
Kelley, Colin et al, 2015. Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications
of the recent Syrian drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(Impact Factor: 9.81). 03/2015; 112(11)
C. Breisinger et al, 2010. “Food Security and Economic Development in the
Middle East and North Africa: Discussion Paper 00985,” International Food Policy
Research Institute.
Reds and oranges highlight lands around the Mediterranean that experienced
significantly drier winters during 1971-2010 than the comparison period of 19022010
Source: M. Hoerling et al., “On the Increased Frequency of Mediterranean
Drought,” Journal of Climate 25 (2012), pp.2146–61.
Climate change
Winter precipitation trends in the Mediterranean
region for the period 1902 – 2010 (Hoerling et al.
2011).
Natural resource
mismanagement
• Heavily-subsidized water-intensive wheat and cotton farming
• Encouragement of inefficient irrigation techniques: e.g. flood
irrigation – 60% of water used is wasted
• Over-pumping of groundwater: Syria’s National Agricultural
Policy Center: increase in wells tapping aquifers from “just
over 135,000 in 1999 to more than 213,000 in 2007…caused
groundwater levels to plummet in many parts of the
country...”
• 2007: Syria consumed 19.2 billion cubic metres of water - 3.5
billion more than the amount of water replenished naturally
• Some evidence of well-drilling contracts awarded on
sectarian basis
Source: F. Femia and C. Werrell, 2012. ‘Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest’, The Center for Climate and Security,
29 Feb. 2012.
Demographics &
desertification
• Over-grazing of land
• Rapidly growing population
• Rising demand for meat from growing and
increasingly affluent population
• Contributes to land degradation and water
insecurity
Source: F. de Châtel, 2014. The Role of Drought and Climate Change in the Syrian Uprising: Untangling the Triggers of the
Revolution. Middle Eastern Studies. Vol. 50, Iss. 4, 2014, pp. 3)
Pressure on urban areas
• Context: Syrian cities coping with influxes of Iraqi refugees
since 2003, steady influx of Palestinian refugees, and from
2007-2011, around 1.5 million Syrian farmers and herders
• Cities already experiencing serious water infrastructure
deficiencies – e.g. Damascus water network leaks up to 60
percent of the water it carries, according to local
authorities
• 2007-2011: Francesca de Châtel: Syria experienced a “huge
deterioration of [water] availability per capita,” partly as a
result of a crumbling urban infrastructure.
Source: F. Femia and C. Werrell, 2012. ‘Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest’, The Center for Climate and Security,
29 Feb. 2012.
Rural communities & unrest
• Role of disaffected rural communities in early Syrian
opposition movement prominent compared to
equivalents in other “Arab uprising” countries.
• 2011: Rural farming town of Dara’a focal point for
protests in early stages of the opposition movement
– a place especially hard hit by five years of drought
and water scarcity
Source: F. Femia and C. Werrell, 2012. ‘Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest’, The Center for
Climate and Security, 29 Feb. 2012.
Egypt
– Produces little of its own
food/ essential staples
(bread)
Per Capita Top Wheat Importing Countries,
Percent Income Spent on Food and Average Age
– Depends on stability of
global wheat market
– Net grain importer (one
of 8 of 10 MENA nations
most dependent on
global wheat market)
– Bread subsidies
insufficient to control
price
Source: ERS, Food CPI and Expenditures Briefing Room, Table 97,
2011. Cited in: Troy Sternberg, “Chinese drought, bread and the
Arab Spring,” Applied Geography 34 (2012): 519–524.
Drought in China and Russia
(-1=drought; -2=extreme drought)
• 2010 drought in China
• 2010 heat wave in Russia (more likely
due to climate change)*
• Wheat harvests devastated
• China and Russia purchase significant
amount of wheat on global market
• Global wheat prices spike – Egypt
affected
*Sources:
Stefan Rahmstorf and Dim Coumou, “Increase of
Extreme Events in a Warming World,” Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States of America 108, no. 44 (November 2011):
17905–17909.
Friederike E. L. Otto et al., “Reconciling Two
Approaches to Attribution of the 2010 Russian Heat
Wave,” Geophysical Research Letters 39, no. 4
(February 2012).
Drought at One- to-Three-Month Timescales November 2010
through January 2011. Standard Precipitation Index (SPI).
Source: Werrell, Femia and Sternberg, “Did We See it Coming? State
Fragility, Climate Vulnerability, and the Uprisings in Syria and Egypt,”
SAIS Review of International Affairs, Volume 35, Number 1, WinterSpring 2015, pp. 29-46
Rural bread riots coincide with Tahrir square
• Bread prices rise 300% in
Egypt
• Bread subsidies regime
corrupt, does not affect
price of bread in rural areas
• At least three major
reported bread riots in 2011
• May have broadened
appeal of uprising beyond
urban areas
Sources:
Werrell, Femia and Sternberg, “Did We See it Coming? State Fragility, Climate Vulnerability, and the Uprisings in Syria and Egypt,”
SAIS Review of International Affairs, Volume 35, Number 1, Winter-Spring 2015, pp. 29-46
Marco Lagi et al., “The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East,” New England Complex Systems
Institute, August 10, 2011.
Syria and Egypt: Environmental
Security Drivers
• Environmental
security variables
and attendant
impacts generally
missing from
analysis of Syria
and Egypt fragility
• Complexity
• Outdated
predictive tools
and indices?
Source: Werrell, Femia and Sternberg, “Did We See it Coming? State Fragility, Climate
Vulnerability, and the Uprisings in Syria and Egypt,” SAIS Review of International Affairs,
Volume 35, Number 1, Winter-Spring 2015, pp. 29-46
Syria: Immune to the Arab uprisings?
• Many political & intelligence analysts predict Syria is
immune to drivers that precipitated the Arab uprisings in
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya
• Obama administration: Developed list of nations likely to
be at risk of large-scale political turmoil: Syria at bottom
of list.
• “No one was focused on Syria, because it seemed far less
likely than other states in the region…” – U.S. Deputy
Secretary of State James Steinberg
Source: J.Mann. 2012. ‘The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power’, pg 270, Viking
Press.
Catch-22…
Self-sufficient, or dependent on global food
market, countries are vulnerable to climate risks.
• Syria by 2050: Rainfed crops decrease up to
57%
• Nile Delta:
• 30-40% Egypt’s agriculture production
• 30% Egypt labor force agrarian
• Alexandria Egypt – 0.5 meter rise seas
would displace 2 mil people.
Sources:
F. Femia and C. Werrell, 2012. ‘Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest’, The
Center for Climate and Security, 29 Feb. 2012.
F. Femia and C. Werrell, 2011, ‘’Egypt’s Political Transition and the Rising Sea: An
Opportunity for Reform’, The Center for Climate and Security, 16 Jan. 2012
Alexandria, Egypt
Or opportunity…
• Solutions could be leveraged for conflict-resolution
• Historical precedent of cooperation between
conflicting parties over scarce water resources, in
particular*
• Resources devoted to climate adaptation in the region
must become a higher development and security
priority
• Climate adaptation should become a new form of
development and security assistance
• Alternatives to water-intensive crop production, and
flood irrigation
*Source: Wolf, A. T. "International Water Conflict Resolution: Lessons from Comparative Analysis." International Journal
of Water Resources Development. Vol. 13 #3, December 1997.
Lessons for analysis
• Environmental/ natural
resource security variables are
unexplored potential drivers of
unrest in Syria and Egypt
• More research needed to
disentangle lines of causality
• Environmental security/ natural
resource variables need better
integration into indices and
predictive tools on state
fragility, conflict, global risks,
etc.
Source: World Economic Forom, Global Risks Report 2014
Source: Werrell, Femia and Sternberg, “Did We See it Coming? State Fragility, Climate Vulnerability, and the Uprisings in Syria and Egypt,” SAIS Review of
International Affairs, Volume 35, Number 1, Winter-Spring 2015, pp. 29-46
Questions?
• Francesco Femia: [email protected]
• The Center for Climate and Security: www.climateandsecurity.org
• Climate and Security 101: www.climatesecurity101.org
• F. Femia and C. Werrell, 2012. ‘Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social
Unrest’, The Center for Climate and Security, 29 Feb. 2012.
• Werrell, Femia and Sternberg, “Did We See it Coming? State Fragility,
Climate Vulnerability, and the Uprisings in Syria and Egypt,” SAIS Review of
International Affairs, Volume 35, Number 1, Winter-Spring 2015, pp. 29-46