Transcript Environmental Security and Environmental Conflict

Conflict and Environment
Environmental security and conflict
Rafael Grasa
Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona
[email protected]
Conflict and Environment
Conflict and Environment
Conflict and Environment
Conflict and Environment
Armed conflicts, 1946–2005
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Extrasystemic
Interstate
Intentationalized
Internal
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30
20
10
2004
2002
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1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
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1984
1982
1980
1978
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Number of Conflicts (normalized)
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Year
For the data, see Harbom, Högbladh & Wallensteen (2006) and www.prio.no/cscw/armedconflict. In this figure, the
number of conflicts is normalized by the number of independent countries. Figure created by Lars Wilhelmsen.
Conflict and Environment
Armed Conflicts in 2005
Countries with conflict on their territory in 2005 (dark brown color), countries with conflict on their territory after the end of the Cold War (light
brown color), and the geographical centre of the conflict (red circle). Source: Halvard Buhaug, on the basis of the Uppsala/PRIO conflict data,
see www.prio.no/cscw/armedconflict.
Conflict and Environment
Evolution of the security concept
Traditional – national (military) security
Now: process, multidimensional----Process:
Common security
Comprehensive security
- national security (freedom from war and occupation)
- political security (freedom from repression)
- economic and social security (freedom from want)
- cultural security (freedom from ethnic/religious oppression)
- environmental security
Insecurity should be reserved for major threats!
Conflict and Environment
Environmental security
Environment: physical factors that condition human affairs
(UNESCO: enviroment + human beings)
Environmental security means to reduce or prevent
• environmental consequences of war
• environmental disasters at the level of war
• erosion of the earth’s carrying capacity
• natural disasters
• war and armed conflict resulting from environmental change
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Consequences of Armed Conflict
• Battle-related deaths and war-related deaths
• Genocide and politicide in war and after
• Destruction of physical and human capital, slow ec. growth
• Weaker social norms and political chaos
• Weapons proliferation, crime
• Refugees and internally displaced persons
• Regional effects
• Environmental destruction (e.g. landmines)
- Vietnam War
- Gulf War
- Landmines and cluster weapons
- Nuclear winter
Conflict and Environment
Environmental disasters at the level of war
• Resource scarcity as public health problem
– lack of clean freshwater and sanitation
• Industrial accidents
– Bhopal, 1984, 2000 people killed; Chernobyl; Aral Sea
• Pollution
– industry and transportation in cities
• Climate change
- sea-level rise, flooding, drought
Conflict and Environment
Natural disasters
• Can be as effective killers as war – or worse
– Indian Ocean Tsunami in December 2004 killed 225,000
– Natural disasters 1995–2004 killed > 800,000
– Volcanic eruptions and meteor strikes even more deadly
• Most natural disasters are (by definition) not man-made
• But some may be exacerbated by man/human activity
– UN High-Level Panel: dramatic increase in major disasters
demonstrates how environmental degradation exacerbates the
destructive potential of natural disasters
• Climate change
- sea-level rise, flooding, drought
Conflict and Environment
Environmental factors in conflict: Five views
• Neomalthusianism: Resource scarcity/demography leads
to conflict (Homer-Dixon)
• Political ecology: It’s the distribution of resources!
• Cornucopianism: There is no inherent resource scarcity
(critic to Neomalthusianism)
• Institutionalism: Cooperation can overcome scarcity
• Resource curse: Resource abundance is the problem
Conflict and Environment
The Malthusian Model
Population grows exponentially
Food production grows linearly
Positive checks (higher death rate):
War, famine, and pestilence
Negative checks (lower birth rate):
Abortions, infanticide, birth control
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The neo-Malthusian model
Population pressure & high resource consumption
Resource depletion
Resource scarcity
Resource competition
Armed conflict
Conflict and Environment
The Homer-Dixon Model
• Demand-induced scarcity
– (mainly driven by population growth)
• Supply-induced scarcity
– (mainly driven by depletion or degradation of a
resource)
• Structural scarcity
– (mainly driven by resource distribution)
Conflict and Environment
Some arguments for the scarcity thesis
• Resource scarcity is the single most important issue in armed
conflict – if you include territory
• This is even more true after the end of the Cold War
• Territorial disputes can be proxies for disputes about other
scarce resources (minerals, energy sources, food, water, etc.)
• Sharing a river seems to contribute to international conflict
• Historical evidence of resource scarcity leading to internal
fighting and even societal collapse
• Ambiguous evidence from the present linking scarcity of
water and land to internal conflict
Conflict and Environment
Studies of effects of resource scarcity
- Hauge & Ellingsen (1998): environmental degradation
stimulates civil war
- Theisen: but these findings cannot be replicated
- State Failure Task Force (1998): environmental
degradation does not stimulate state failure
- de Soysa (2002): change variables do not measure
degradation
- Binningsbø et al. (2005): ecological footprint  peace
* few robust findings for internal conflict
* more robust findings for water and interstate conflict
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Cornucopian objections
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methodological
economic
political
demographic
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Methodological objections
• few systematic studies
• many studies limited to countries in conflict
• spurious factors – is poverty the key?
• is resource scarcity a cause of conflict or an effect?
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Economic objections
• environmental Kuznets curve
• resources can be substituted
• technological innovation
• market pricing
Conflict and Environment
Air pollution – an environmental Kuznets curve?
Income per person, 1985 PPP$
SO2 levels in 47 cities in 31 countries. Source: Lomborg (2001: 176), mainly based on World Bank data
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The long-term decline in food prices
350.00
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100.00
50.00
2014
2011
2008
2005
2002
1999
1996
1993
1990
1987
1984
1981
1978
1975
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1969
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0.00
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Food Price (1990=100)
World Bank Food Price Index 1960-2015
Year
World Bank, various sources (personal communication with Betty Dow, Commodities Information Analyst, Development Prospects Group, World Bank, 7 September
2006). The price is weighed by the Manufactures Unit Values Index and is given in constant 1990 USD, thus reflecting real prices. For the trend to reflect real food
availability all markets have to be open (in order to make the price mechanisms work properly). If this caveat holds, there seems to be a marked decline in global food
prices up to the mid 1980s when it stabilizes. The peak in 1974 is due to increased production costs (and perhaps increased hoarding) due to the 1973 oil crisis.[1]
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Political objections
• Democracy and environmental performance (or commitment)
- Freedom of information
- Pluralism
- Pragmatism
- International cooperation
- Market orientation
- Greater respect for human life
• The democratic peace (internal, external)
• Cooperation trumps conflict
Conflict and Environment
Environmental cooperation
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Law of the Sea
River authorities
Joint hydroelectric projects
Cooperation cuts across conflict boundaries
Webs of interdependence?
Towards an International Dike Authority for Low-Lying
Areas?
Conflict and Environment
Demographic objections
• Population pressure may not always be harmful
– Ester Boserup
– Julian Simon
• Limited impact of three forms of population pressure:
– population density
– population growth
– youth bulges
• Global population explosion has been called off
Conflict and Environment
World population, 1950-2300
Source: World Population to 2300. ST/ESA/SER.A./236. New York: United Nations, Population
Division, 2004, www.un.org/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf.
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The resource curse
Abundance of natural resources lead to
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low economic growth
corruption
poor governance
resource capture and looting
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Natural resources and civil war
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Criticism of the resource curse literature
• Share of natural resources exports to GDP does not
reflect lootability (saqueo)
• Results are not robust
• Case selection, as in neo-malthusian stories
• Nation-level data too rough
Conflict and Environment
Diamonds and conflict I
F
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Congo
Congo/Zaire
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Tanzania
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Zambia
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Angola
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Secondary diamond deposit
Conflict zone 1998 - 1999
Source: Halvard Buhaug, Scott Gates & Päivi Lujala, 2003. ‘Lootable Natural Resources and the Duration of Armed Civil
Conflict, 1946-2001’, paper presented at the 11th Norwegian National Meeting in Political Science, Trondheim, 8–10 January.
Conflict and Environment
Diamanter og konflikter II
Source: Elisabeth Gilmore, Päivi Lujala, Nils Petter Gleditsch & Jan Ketil Rød, 2005. 'Conflict Diamonds:
A New Dataset', Conflict Management and Peace Science 22(3): 257–292.
Conflict and Environment
Opium and coca cultivation since 1950
Coca bush cultivation
Opium poppy cultivation
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0
Source: Päivi Lujala, NTNU, unpublished.
3000
6000 Kilometers
Conflict and Environment
Will the future be different from the past?
• Are we eroding the earth's carrying capacity?
- neomalthusians and cornucopians disagree sharply
• Many gloomy predictions in the past were wrong
- population, food, raw materials
• Are changes now less reversible?
- biodiversity loss, soil erosion and deforestation less so
• Is the best strategy to prevent or to alleviate?
- global warming
Conflict and Environment
Some tentative conclusions
• Cornucopians are justified in questioning the apocalyptic
visions of global man-made collapse
- global warming a major uncertainty
• Neomalthusians rightly point to local scarcity conflicts over
land, water, etc.
- but these are low-level conflicts and tied to the quality of government
and the level of development
• The 'resource cursers' argue correctly that some conflicts
are fueled by natural resource wealth
- but some of their generalizations are as hasty as those of the
neomalthusians
• Liberal policies provide our best general answer to threats
to human security, including environmental
- promote democracy – by peaceful means!
Conflict and Environment
The commodity-conflict relation is becoming better
understood
• Primary commodities strongly associated with conflict,
and oil in particular
• Two key mechanisms:
(1) through the weakening of the state
(2) through the financing of rebels, sometimes by corporations
• Effect (1) seems dominant but some clear cases of effect
(2) also
• Here follow 5 suggestions for dealing with these
governance problems
Conflict and Environment
Conflict and Environment
Conflict and Environment
Recommendation 1
• Publication of Payments: Make it mandatory
– The Problem with Voluntary Compliance:
• The countries where voluntary compliance is least likely are the countries where
you need it most
• If voluntary compliance fails, corporations will still want to deal with
unrepresentative governments
• If it succeeds, regimes in resource rich countries are still likely to be overthrown,
more so than governments in corporations’ home countries
– Advantages of Mandatory Compliance
• For governments: Mandatory requirements can strengthen the position of willing
governments
• For corporations: It can level the playing field in cases where corporations
compete against other corporations that are not constrained by human rights
concerns
– Practicalities
• There are different ways this can be done: delisting, through IFI conditionality,
through other legislation
Conflict and Environment
Recommendation 2
• Establish a Global Public Information Center
– The Problem:
• Lack of transparency about what is transparent!
• What deal did Chad get? I don’t know, Chadians don’t know. We are not
sure even what we are supposed to know about this transparent deal
– Suggestion: Establish a single site, posting relevant legislation bids and
contracts from all resource producing states
– Advantages:
• Makes it obvious when documents are not available
• Posting could be used as a condition for financing
– Practicalities: Could be hosted by the World Bank, by the OSI…
Conflict and Environment
Recommendation 3
• Maintain Income Taxes
• The Problem: States accessing resource revenues are tempted to
drop income axes, in part because they are distortionary, in part
because they are difficult to collect and sometimes unpopular. But
doing this weakens the linkages between the state and society.
– Suggestion: Maintain Income Taxes
– Advantages:
• Avoid hollowing out of state structures
• Make revenues dependent on national income
• Make revenues dependent on popular support
– Practicalities: Use natural resources revenues for targeted
expenditure not for general budgetary support
Conflict and Environment
Recommendation 4
• Get corporations involved at the peace
negotiations table
– The Problem:
• The implementation of peace negotiations is often jeopardized by the lack of
employment possibilities for ex-combatants. Investors fears of a re-start of conflict can
become self-fulfilling prophecies.
– Advantages of getting corporations involved at the peace negotiations table
• For corporations: Awareness of quality of deals and interests of groups
• For the country: Help provide basis and confidence in economic terms of the deal
– Risks
• May stifle competitions
• Moral hazard
Conflict and Environment
Recommendation 5
• Make contracts conditional upon criteria for
Regime Recognition
• The Problem: Successful mining may lead to the
desire to capture the state. Whoever gets the sate
gets control of the assets. This increases political
risk.
– Suggestion. Tie accounts and contracts to available
mechanisms for recognizing regimes
• For example: Regimes recognized by the African Union
• For example: Establish “club” criteria for recognition, similar to
the Millennium Challenge Account provisions
Conflict and Environment