“What are the conflicts or risks associated with response to climate change?” asked Geoff Dabelko, Director of the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP), at the panel discussion “Minimizing Conflict in Climate Change Responses” hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. on 18 July. “How we respond to climate change may or may not contribute to conflict,” he said, but “at the end of the day, we need to do no harm.”



Dabelko was joined by Christian Webersik, associate professor at the University of Agder, Norway, and Dennis Taenzler, senior project manager at adelphi, to discuss how responses to climate change may lead to new conflict. As we think about adopting biofuels, solar and nuclear energy options, and geoengineering, “we have to do it with our eyes open,” Dabelko said.



We are “both the victims and agents” of climate change, Webersik said. We are affected by it, but we are also responding to it, through adaptation and mitigation efforts, geoengineering proposals, and emissions avoidance. “These strategies themselves have ripple-on effects,” he said. For example, the fuel-food crisis in 2008, in which higher demand for biofuels led to more competition over arable land and increases in food prices, contributed to riots and political instability in some places.



Taenzler presented two divergent views on our world’s forests. On one hand, these remote and often disputed lands have been home to many clashes over resources, which are sometimes further fueled by timber revenues. On the other hand, forests also present “sustainable opportunities,” he said. “1.2 billion people depend on forests for income and livelihood.”



The United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) programme aims to stimulate action on forest management and provide payment for ecoservices. It provides new income opportunities, creates forest monitoring structures, and reduces illegal logging. To address the potential negative effects of REDD, Taenzler recommended “to focus on clarifying ownership and legal issues, installing transparent forms of benefit sharing, and ensuring international support for capacity building and REDD-readiness.”



To minimize the conflict from climate change responses in the energy sector, Webersik called for a focus “away from corn and sugarcane” and on to second generation biofuels, such as algae grown in salt water and residue from the logging industry. He also stressed the need to experiment with carbon capture and storage, and new energy-efficiency techniques. “Climate change is a reality,” Webersik said. “Let’s get our focus back on adaptation and reducing the vulnerabilities in countries and increasing their resilience. This is also an opportunity to bring together the disaster community.”



“We need much greater fluency and cooperation across communities and disciplines, much greater flexibility in program design and communication across offices,” Dabelko said. “Back up at the 30,000 foot view, [we need to] avoid the hyperbole in either direction that either the sky is falling or that there is no problem at all, which can set back the policy discussion.” (Jason Steimel with Meaghan Parker and Schuyler Null)



The conference report in full length is available at http://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2011/08/backdraft-minimizing-conflict-in.html



For more information about REDD, please see

http://www.un-redd.org/AboutUNREDDProgramme/tabid/583/Default.aspx

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, 4/2011