9.2: Current and Future Risks to Human Security

Having reviewed in depth climate change impacts on natural systems and human systems, this section now links them to the four pillars of human security: military/strategic security of the state, economic security, population health, and environmental integrity.

All four pillars define risks to human security that are related to climate change and its impacts. In fact, specific climate change impacts often exacerbate more than one of these pillars. The IPCC AR5 Scenario (IPCC, 2019, Chapter 12, p. 758) states, “human insecurity almost never has single causes, but instead emerges from the interaction of multiple factors. Climate change is an important factor threatening human security through: 1. undermining livelihoods; 2. compromising culture and identity; 3. increasing migration that people would have rather avoided; and 4. challenging the ability of states to provide the conditions necessary for human security.” These four links between human security and climate change identified by the IPCC fit into the domains outlined by the four pillar model.

The World Health Organization published a report in 2017 that explains how the marginal, often unsanitary living conditions of those displaced, are causing increases in diseases such as acute watery diarrhea, measles outbreaks, and noncommunicable diseases. Other major health impacts include severe depression and anxiety, malnutrition in children and infants, and increased deaths from lack of proper treatment and medicine (WHO, 2017). Such adverse effects on health affect civil society, people’s day-to-day lives, the rule of law, social stability and peace, and the financial security of families. Lately, descriptions of climate trauma have appeared in the literature (Richardson, 2018; Woodbury, 2019) – socio-emotional changes in a person’s psychological health that could have severe consequences for social groups.

An event that figures prominently in recent world history is the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011 and is ongoing at the time of writing, and the Syrian refugee crisis that followed, which had displaced 5.6 million people by September 2018. This example clearly shows how climate change can pose a threat to human security through undermining livelihoods, compromising culture and identity, increasing migration, and challenging the ability of the state to provide security. It is important to note that the Syrian civil war is an extremely complicated political conflict, and the facts presented here serve only to demonstrate the role that climate change played in exacerbating the situation, not in causing the war.

Many scholars saw Syria’s water shortage as a major tipping point in the war, due to the climate change impact of intense drought. Water has always been a sought after resource in Syria, a country considered to be highly water scarce (Guppy & Anderson, 2017). Its water sources such as the Euphrates River and the Yarmouk River, are sources of tension due to management disputes between the countries that share them (Gleick, 2014). From 2006 to 2011, the country experienced a period of extreme drought that made a precarious situation more dire. Agricultural yields dropped, prompting analysts to call it an agricultural failure. Between 2006 and 2011, the United Nations found 75% of farmers’ crops failed and 85% of livestock died from thirst or hunger. Syria’s current drought situation is even more dire than when the war began. In 2016, grain yields dropped to 50% of the yield in 2011. This caused major economic instability for millions of Syrians (FAO, 2016). The combination of water shortage, loss of crops and livestock, and financial hardship catalyzed a mass migration of people from rural areas to urban areas like Homs and Damascus. This put cities under greater stress, with people vying for jobs, food and shelter. This contributed to the social unrest and dissatisfaction with the Assad regime that was already present. While scholars are careful to attribute cause to effect, and still others posit that the Syrian civil war would have happened regardless of a drought, it is mostly agreed upon that the conditions of drought and water shortage, along with the resulting food shortages, exacerbated existing tensions. (Kelley et al., 2015).

The war has been raging since 2011, and over half a million citizens have died (Human Rights Watch, 2018), and over 13.5 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance (UNHCR & Government of Turkey, 2019). The war has created tension between nation states that disagree on the proper action to be taken, and has created tension within nations that are divided on the acceptance of refugees into their societies.

Notwithstanding these breaches of state security and economic security, the Syrian civil war has had a major effect on population health. Many Syrians still living within the nation’s borders are food insecure. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO, 2016) reports that there are 6.5 million starving Syrians. The World Health Organization published a report in 2017 that explains how the marginal, often unsanitary living conditions of those displaced, are causing increases in diseases such as acute watery diarrhea, measles outbreaks, and noncommunicable diseases. Other major health impacts include severe depression and anxiety, malnutrition in children and infants, and increased deaths from lack of proper treatment and medicine (WHO, 2017).