United Nations Says Climate Change Threatens Global Security

The United Nations Security Council has officially acknowledged that climate change will fuel violent conflict around the world. The council will meet later this month to discuss potential security threats.

"The traditional triggers for conflict which exist out there are likely to be exacerbated by the effect of climate change," Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, the council president, said Wednesday.

The council will look at the impact of climate change on water, agricultural production, the potential for famine and crop surpluses, he said. Rising temperatures, for example, will increase water levels and can swallow up island nations our force massive relocation of people living in low-lying areas, he said.

Better late than never, I guess.

For a sense of what this means in painfully immediate terms, the Atlantic Monthly ran an excellent story this month on the climactic roots of genocide in Darfur.

U.N. Security Council to Study Climate [Associated Press]

Image: Eric Verspoor