If for just a few generations before us the term "global warming" didn't mean much it sure it's an alarming concern for everyone alive now. Climate change hasn't been always given enough attention and we see the consequences of ignorance affecting our everyday lives. Despite our efforts into trying to come up with a quick and effective solution we still don't see much of a change. Sea levels are rising, glaciers are melting, temperatures are higher than never before, fires are more common and new desserts are created. We might not fully understand the impacts of all of this but if we look at what these problems lead to, the future doesn't look very bright. Global warming is becoming the root of domestic and global conflicts. States need to rethink their strategies and the way they govern themselves based on how the changes in the environment affect them. The global environmental conflicts will lead states into becoming neo-realistic and the US had the moral and political responsibility to approach this from a cosmopolitan perspective.
To understand the reasons why global warming in strongly tied to conflicts we only need to take a look at how well the the basic human needs are being satisfied around the globe. If your ability to get food, water and shelter are put at stake because of global warming reasons, if would be hard for any human being to keep follow any rules or obey a government. In past few years, ever since we have seen the effects of global warming happening more often, we also experience more conflicts around the world.
The most recent conflict that started as a cause of global warming is the conflict in Syria. The conflicts there started as early as 2006 when drought affected the country's production of wheat. As a matter of fact people started moving into the cities looking for jobs and desperately trying to survive. "UN experts estimated that between two million and three million of Syria's ten million rural inhabitants were reduced to "extreme poverty." (Polk, 5) At this time Syria had to deal with the Palestinian refugees and the diverse groups that we're striving to survive. According to Polk, the US AID refused to help them and like it wasn't already enough, the Syrian government didn't predict this could happen and sold the wheat reserves. It all added up, and driven by anger and survival needs people started protesting against the government. This conflict has been going on ever since, getting worse and worse and causing a big number of deaths, people moving abroad, or losing their homes.
Another well known conflict happened in Darfur where farmers are fighting the Arab nomads who are cutting down trees and making fertile land disappear. Also the UN Environment Program reports that "With rainfall down by up to 30% over 40 years and the Sahara advancing by well over a mile every year, tensions between farmers and herders over disappearing pasture and evaporating water holes threaten to reignite the half-century war between north and south Sudan, held at bay by a precarious 2005 peace accord"(UNPE) Global warming is the cause of this conflict as well as the many other conflicts in Africa, but just because these conflicts are on one continent it doesn't mean that the problem is not globally. Climate change is a global and it needs global solutions.
Being the most developed country comes with some responsibilities. As Virignia Held talks in one of her articles, democratic states have a bigger responsibility to step up and do something for the global community rather than authoritarian states who don't have much of a say and free will in coming up with solutions. The US need to take its role as the world's hegemon and most influential state and and apply it into getting all the states to develop policies that would lead into working for a common goal . US's influential power can socially construct the idea that environmental issues are global and something can be done about them if the states work together.
To be an example for other states, at the state level the US has already passed laws like the Clean Water Act (CWA), which I quote : "establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters."(epa.gov) and just this past summer Obama passed a law that will regulate the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the power plants. These regulations do have a positive impact on reducing the emission of CO2 but the US also needs to come up with solutions at a global scale. If the US fails to do so, and can't establish agreements with other states, security problems will rise and migration can become another concern.
Migration itself plays a key element in starting a conflict. If people can't grow crops to sustain themselves or if their land will be soon covered in water or become a desert they will have no other choice than move. Migrations comes with political problems which can easily end up in a civil war, like the one in Syria where different groups are fighting each other. It also brings along economic instability and an uneven land distribution. For example if the people in one state were able to sustain themselves now they have to share their resources with people that migrated from different places. If nationalism is strongly emphasized in that certain state, the likelihood of a conflict staring is even higher.
Due to the uneven distribution of resources we see conflicts in Middle East. People are fighting to get their hands on the oil. Unfortunately it's not just Middle East and it's not just oil. We see Canada who now wants to claim Antarctica for their resources, or wee see countries like Israel, Jordan and the states surrounding River Jordan fighting for that body of water. Food and resource scarcity are the effect of climate change which will all lead to conflicts.
These global conflicts will play an important role in the way states govern themselves. States will be driven by their own self interest and become more egoistic when it comes to share resources. An example of this happened in 2008 when several countries banned export in order to assure they have enough. "Grain and soybean prices started to climb, tripling by mid-2008. In response, many exporting countries tried to control the rise of domestic food prices by restricting exports. Among them were Russia and Argentina, two leading wheat exporters. Vietnam, the No. 2 rice exporter, banned exports entirely for several months in early 2008. So did several other smaller exporters of grain." This selfishness in sharing resources produces a lot of fear among countries who import most of their food.
This global instability will force governments to act from a neo-realist perspective. Security will be a main concern, but if we think logically, military security cannot stop the climate change.
In order to ameliorated the conflicts the US could treat the symptoms, but on a long run it will affect everyone even more. The US needs to go back to the idea of cosmopolitanism and find ways to cooperate with other states in order to get to the root of the problem. A global community where basic human needs are met, while also working to stop climate change will be the ideal world. If this ideal world would ever exist it still remains undetermined. Unfortunately while more people are trying to survive even if that requires fight and going to war others use the resources abundantly neglecting and destroying the world.
