INFOTERRA: News: Environmental Impacts of War, Study Proposed By UN
[The UNEP maintains a web page with links to materials pertaining to "War
and the Environment" at:
http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=288]
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http://www.enn.com/news/2004-01-14/s_12024.asp
U.N. aims to study link between environment, wars
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
By Alister Doyle, Reuters
OSLO, Norway - The United Nations wants to study links between the
environment and human conflict to see how future wars might be sparked
by factors like global warming.
Pollution, droughts, floods, storms, desertification, and rising sea
levels are among possible triggers of wars in a world with more and more
people competing for limited resources.
"The environment can be a trigger of conflict but we don't know enough
about it," Steve Lonergan, director of the U.N. Environment Program
division of early warning and assessment in Nairobi, told Reuters.
A new UNEP survey of governments around the world showed that the two
main gaps in environmental understanding were links between the
environment and conflict, as well as the environment and poverty, he
said.
"Under climate change we expect more extreme events, more floods, more
droughts," said Lonergan, a Canadian scientist.
He added that global warming could in turn lead to instability by
forcing people to move to other areas, causing conflict with people
already living there.
Many scientists say that emissions of gases like carbon dioxide, mainly
from cars and factories, are blanketing the planet and driving up
temperatures.
"But this is not just about climate change. Resource scarcity and
abundance can also contribute to conflict," he said. Abundant natural
resources like diamonds and metals can also cause conflicts.
He said that environment ministers from around the world, due to meet
in South Korea in late March, were likely to approve a new drive to
widen U.N. understanding of the environment and links to conflicts and
poverty.
UNEP might set up a new secretariat on environmental peace and
conflict, he said.
"The classic case is water scarcity in the Middle East," Lonergan said.
Lack of water is one underlying cause of conflict between Israel and
Syria and Israel and the Palestinians. Environmental damage has been a
factor in political unrest in nations from the Democratic Republic of
Congo to Haiti, he said.
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Source: Reuters
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