Climate change escalates all wars that are already happening
Evans 10 (Alex Evans, Center on International Cooperation, New York University, September 9, 2010, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTWDR2011/Resources/6406082-1283882418764/WDR_Background_Paper_Evans.pdf)
Even before climate change is taken into account, scarcity of land, food, water and oil is likely to be an increasing driver of change between now and 2030, and beyond. Climate change will exacerbate the challenge in all of these areas, and the combined effect of these changes is likely to put tens to hundreds of millions more people at risk of impacts including hunger, disease, displacement, injury, poverty or other forms of hardship. Although the conflict risk posed by climate change and resource scarcity will almost always be better understood as a ‘threat multiplier’ than as a sole cause of violent conflict, a range of potential linkages between climate, scarcity and conflict risk can nonetheless be identified, whether through intensifying existing problems, or through creating new environmental problems that lead to instability.79The most obvious such linkage is the risk of direct conflict over access to or control of scarce resources such as land or water. Most current examples of such conflicts take place within countries, but intensifying resource scarcity and climate change could see an increase in strategic resource competition between states, both at the regional level (particularly if abrupt climate effects, such as rapid glacial melting, manifest themselves and thus impact trans-boundary water resources) and internationally (with some countries already pursuing third country access rights to oil, land, food and potentially water). However, a range of other conflict risks arising from climate change and resource scarcity also have the potential to make themselves felt in the future. Among them are cases where livelihoods or economies are undermined by resource scarcity, potentially increasing state fragility in the process; cases where violent conflict itself has the effect of contributing to environmental degradation, thus potentially creating a cyclical relationship between scarcity and conflict; large-scale unplanned migration as a result of climate impacts or resource scarcity; and the risk that changing geographical circumstances, such as rising sea levels or changing water flows in trans-boundary watercourses, render existing legal agreements out of date.Making specific projections about the extent or location of future conflict risks driven by climate change and resource scarcity is highly complex and resistant to specificity. In part this is because, as just noted, climate and scarcity effects will rarely if ever be felt in isolation from the impacts of other risks. The extent of the impacts caused by climate and scarcity will also depend as much on social, institutional, economic and ecological vulnerability as on the magnitude of the threats themselves. Above all, projections of the future effects of climate and scarcity issues are highly uncertain and unpredictable, given not only limitations in the current scientific outlook (particularly at more granular levels of geographical focus), but also the non-linear nature of many of the changes involved and the complex feedback loops between different scarcity issues. For all these reasons, policymakers will often face an uphill struggle in deciding on priorities for measures to invest in preparedness and reduce vulnerability to increasing climate change and resource scarcity. However, some general observations may still be made about some key areas for action.
Turns their impacts - creates strategic overstretch and irrational actors
Harvey 11 (Fiona Harvey, Enviorment Correspondant for the Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/06/climate-change-war-chris-huhne)
Climate change will lead to an increased threat of wars, violence and military action against the UK, and risks reversing the progress of civilisation, the energy and climate secretary Chris Huhne will say on Thursday, in his strongest warning yet that the lack of progress on greenhouse gas emission cuts would damage the UK's national interests. "Climate change is a threat multiplier. It will make unstable states more unstable, poor nations poorer, inequality more pronounced, and conflict more likely," Huhne is expected to say in a speech to defence experts. "And the areas of most geopolitical risk are also most at risk of climate change." He will warn that climate change risks reversing the progress made in prosperity and democracy since the industrial revolution, arguing that the results of global warming could lead to a return to a "Hobbesian" world in which life is "nasty, brutish and short". Huhne believes the UK and other countries must act urgently to prepare for the threat. "We cannot be 100% sure that our enemies will attack our country, but we do not hesitate to prepare for the eventuality," he plans to say. "The same principle applies to climate change, which a report published by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has identified as one of the four critical issues that will affect everyone on the planet over the next 30 years." His comparison of climate change and terrorism echoes Sir David King, the former chief scientific adviser to the government who warned in 2004 that global warning posed "a bigger threat than terrorism". The warning so incensed the then US president George W Bush that he phoned Tony Blair to ask him to gag the scientist. Huhne argues that it is clearly in the UK's national interest to cut carbon dioxide emissions sharply, and persuade other nations to join in the effort.His speech comes at a delicate time for the prime minister, David Cameron, who was embarrassed earlier in the week by an open revolt over climate issues staged by his members of the European parliament. MEPs were voting on whether to adopt more ambitious emissions reduction targets that would raise the goal from a 20% cut in carbon by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, to a tougher 30% cut.Despite Downing St intervention, more than two-thirds of Tory MEPs rebelled against the party line, to support the tougher target. Their revolt was instrumental in defeating the proposal, part of a complex series of votes in the parliament. Green campaigners hope to revive the issue in future votes, and with member states and the European commission, but the vote revealed the depths of climate scepticism within the Tory party. Huhne has scored key victories in recent months in his attempts to put climate change at the centre of coalition policy. He helped to persuade Cameron to accept the "fourth carbon budget" - a plan that would see the UK halve emissions by 2025, the stiffest target of any developed country. Yesterday the prime minister announced tough new energy efficiency standards, supported by Huhne, that would require central government to cut emissions by 25% in the five-year term of this parliament. Huhne will quote military experts, including the MoD and the US Pentagon, who have warned that climate change will increase the risk of conflict and potentially terrorism. Climate change intensifies security threats in three ways: increasing competition for resources; more natural and humanitarian disasters, such as the droughts now causing famine in Africa, which will also lead to mass migration and the conflicts that ensue; and threats to the security of energy supplies.