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World in Transition: Climate Change as a Security Risk

Author: 
German Advisory Council on Global Change (R. Schubert, H.J. Schellnhuber, N. Buchmann, A. Epiney, R. Grißhammer, M. Kulessa, D. Messner, S. Rahmstorf, J. Schmid)
Publisher: 
earthscan
Type of Publication: 
Reports
Theme: 
Adaptation, Climate Change, Human Security
Status: 
Free
Language of Publication: 
English
Year of Publication: 
2008

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Without resolute counteraction, climate change will overstretch many societies’ adaptive capacities within the coming decades. This could result in destabilization and violence, jeopardizing national and international security to a new degree. However, climate change could also unite the international community, provided that it recognizes climate change as a threat to humankind and soon sets the course for the avoidance of dangerous anthropogenic climate change by adopting a dynamic and globally coordinated climate policy. If it fails to do so, climate change will draw ever-deeper lines of division and conflict in international relations, triggering numerous conflicts between and within countries over the distribution of resources, especially water and land, over the management of migration, or over compensation payments between the countries mainly responsible for climate change and those countries most affected by its destructive effects.

That is the backdrop against which WBGU, in this flagship report, summarizes the state-of-the-art of science on the subject of “Climate Change as a Security Risk”. It is based on the findings of research into environmental conflicts, the causes of war, and of climate impact research. It appraises past experience but also ventures to cast a glance far into the future in order to assess the likely impacts of climate change on societies, nation-states, regions and the international system.

Commissioned Expert's Studies

For this Report, the Council has commissioned expert's studies, which are available for download (in German only – 3 studies in English):

  • Brauch: Regionalexpertise: Destabilisierungs- und Konfliktpotential prognostizierter Umweltveränderungen in der Region Südeuropa und Nordafrika bis 2020/2050. (4,8 MB, 72 S.) 
  • Carius, Tänzler, Winterstein: Weltkarte von Umweltkonflikten: Ansätze zur Typologisierung.(5,9 MB, 115 S.)  
  • Cassel-Gintz: Karten zur Bodendegradation und Versalzung. GIS-II. (8,9 MB, 17 S.)  
  • Clark: Environmentally Induced Migration and Conflict. (1,6 MB, 24 S.)  
  • Giese, Sehring: Regionalexpertise: Destabilisierungs- und Konfliktpotential prognostizierter Umweltveränderungen in der Region Zentralasien bis 2020/2050. (1,7 MB, 46 S.)  
  • Heberer: Regionalexpertise: Destabilisierungs- und Konfliktpotential prognostizierter Umweltveränderungen in China bis 2020/2050. (824 KB, 39 S.)  
  • Swatuk: Regional expertise: Southern Africa, Environmental Change and Regional Security: An Assessment. (440 KB, 24 S.)  
  • Wodinski: Karten zu Umweltparametern. GIS-I Diese Expertise betraf die Zulieferung von Daten bzw. das Rechnen von Modellläufen, so dass das Ergebnis nicht oder nicht ausschließlich in Schriftform vorliegt.  
  • Wolf: A Long Term View of Water and Security: International Waters, National Issues, and Regional Tensions. (544 KB, 22 S.)

Full text, 248 pages (ISBN 978-1-84407-536-2)
Summary, 14 pages (ISBN 978-3-936191-20-2)
Flagship Report 2007

German Advisory Council on Global Change