World in Transition: Climate Change as a Security Risk - WBGU

tions, this has already given rise to problems including
social unrest and attacks on migrants, human trafficking
and an increasing number of fatalities from
attempted sea-crossings. With regard to political stability
it is noticeable that the entire region is affected
– albeit to differing degrees – by weak governance
structures. Radical fundamentalist religious movements
pose a further major problem in all the countries
studied.
Plausible developments by around 2020
In view of this background, the following sequence
of developments is conceivable for the period up to
2020.
The already observable effects of global climate
change (heat, reduced precipitation) exa cerbate the
problems of resources. Desertification and water
shortages increase in the whole of North Africa
and all the countries of the Sahel. The need for
drinking water and water for irrigation increases,
while precipitation (in the Atlas Mountains and
elsewhere) continually decreases. Because of
overuse of the soil, agricultural productivity drops
sharply – including along the Me diterranean coast
and in the Nile valley, the most fertile parts of the
region. The density of population along the Mediterranean
coast increases the environmental stress
in this region in an unprecedented manner.
In the Sahel the amount of agriculturally viable
land declines significantly by 2025. In the rural
regions of the Sahel and in the North African countries
along the Mediterranean traditional homelands
shrink rapidly as a result of desertification.
The broad mass of the rural population is unable
to take steps to compensate for the nega tive consequences
of climate change. Strategies that have
for centuries enabled local people to survive the
prevailing climatic conditions are now inadequate.
It is not only climate that is causing desertification:
widespread poverty is a contributory factor, and
on account of population growth an increasingly
significant one. By 2020 the population of
the Sahel countries will have quadrupled since
1960. Furthermore, it is estimated that between
2025 and 2050 the population of North Africa
will increase by around another 50 million (UN
DESA, 2005). Even if population growth is stabilized
in the coming decades, the rural exodus and
the concentration of population in the cities will
continue to increase. The food security situ ation
will become increasingly precarious as a result of
environmental degradation, forcing entire villages
to abandon their land and start a new life in the
urban agglomerations.
Conflict constellation: ‘Environmentally induced migration’ 6.5
Fictitious confrontation scenario:
Destabilization in North Africa impacts on
Europe
The following scenario can be imagined: alongside
the worrying demographic trend and the negative
features that accompany it, the situation with regard
to natural resources continues to deteriorate after
2020. The climate factor dramatically worsens the
resource crisis, and by the middle of the 21st century
the rise in sea level becomes an acute problem – particularly
in Egypt, where the viability of coastal cities
such as Alexandria and other cities of the Nile Delta
is threatened. In the Sahel countries climate changes
cause such decline in the productivity of former agricultural
and cattle-farming regions that by the middle
of the 21st century only a ‘rump’ of the population
remains. Famines are an almost annual occurrence.
Disputes over the allocation of the few remaining
areas that can still be farmed give rise to regular outbreaks
of violence between local ethnic groups, especially
between those who were formerly nomadic and
traditionally settled population groups.
With no prospects in any of the countries of the
region, many young people see migration to Europe
as their only opportunity. For migrants from the Sahel
region the Maghreb countries are usually the first
stopping-off point on the journey they hope will take
them across the Mediterranean to southern Europe.
Towards the middle of the 21st century the northwards
migration of predominantly young men from
the countries of the Sahel takes on the proportions of
a ‘Völkerwanderung’, i.e. mass migration such as was
seen in Europe during the Dark Ages. Every year
hundreds of thousands of people from the Sahel and
the tropical areas of West and Central Africa arrive in
the North African coastal regions. As a result, enormous
slum settlements housing stranded emigrants
arise in the urban agglomerations of the Maghreb.
The year 2020 sees the start of serious social and
political destabilization in all the countries affected
by this migration. The rural exodus caused by
desertification and drought leads to further urbanization;
as a result the urban slum areas expand further
and their population density is very high. The
situation of economic hopelessness generates enormous
potential for political destabilization among
young people who have no prospects; the urban
slums threaten to become lawless areas. This creates
a breeding ground for the further radicalization and
spread of extremist religious movements.
The governments of the countries most affected
manage to stay in power by subjecting religiously
oriented political movements to increasing repression.
They do this with the support of various countries
with which they have signed treaties on the
extraction of oil, gas and other resources (uranium
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