There Will Be Another Syria. It’s Just A Case Of Where And When’, Experts Warn

Climate change will inevitably help cause another major war, having already caused the brutal Syrian conflict, experts have warned.

 

A panel of national security and climate change specialists made the sombre warning at the One Young World summit in Tucson, Arizona, last weekend.   “At some point, the environmental stress of a given group of people becomes so great they have no choice but to change their way of life,” said Eric Holthaus, meteorologist and climate change journalist. “Wherever the next Syria is, it’s hard to know. But we know there will be one on the path.”   Chair of the panel Alexander Verbeek, global issues policy advisor for the Netherlands’ foreign affairs ministry, highlighted the effect climate change will have on the younger generations.    “We’re talking about a massive, worldwide, manmade climate change that is going to impact each and every one of us. And youths will really start to feel that impact.   “If you think about any conflicts you read about in the newspaper, you will see that droughts are in zones prone to conflict. If we look at the impact of climate change on war, there’s never a conflict that’s 100% attributable to climate change but it is always a factor.””   Verbeek pinpointed the Syrian civil war as an example of this, referencing research published by Colin Kelley, a climate scientist based in Santa Barbara.   In his 2015 publication, Kelley states: “There is evidence the 2007-2010 drought contributed to the conflict in Syria. It was the worst drought in the instrumental record, causing widespread crop failure and a mass migration of farming families to urban centres.. We conclude that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict.”   Speaking to young leaders at the One Young World summit, Verbeek explained: “In the past few decades in Syria, rainfall went down, temperature went up, and droughts increased in frequency and duration. The last drought began in 2007 and never really stopped.   “And that has been a factor in the uprising that ultimately resulted in the Syrian Civil War.” More