RESOURCE COMPETITION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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the next few decades. This is especially truein the Middle East and North Africa, wherefresh water is already in short supply andpopulation growth rates are among the highestin the world. For example, the number ofpeople who will be relying on the Nile River,the Jordan River and the Tigris—Euphratessystem for all or most of their water supplywill grow from approximately 325 millionin 2000 to 740 million in 2050 — withoutany appreciable increase in the net supplyof water in the region. Unless the existingsources of supply are used more efficiently,or the desalination of seawater proves moreaffordable, competition over access to waterwill become more intense in these areas andcould lead to war. 7Population growth is also likely to placegrowing pressure on the world’s supply ofarable land. This is especially true in thedeveloping areas, where many people stillrely on agriculture for their basic survival orfor family income. As population expands,farmers tend to crop their existing plots moreintensively or to bring marginal lands intocultivation, thereby depleting the soil of essentialnutrients and risking the onset oferosion. The ever-growing demand for croplandalso leads to the accelerated clearingof virgin forests, eradicating the habitats ofmany unique plant and animal species.UrbanisationClosely related to population growth butadding distinctive pressures of its own is thegrowing concentration of humans in largetowns and cities. Throughout the world —but especially in the developing world —people are moving from rural to urban areas,and from small to large cities. According toWRI, the world’s urban population surgedfrom 1.5 billion people in 1975 to 2.6 billionin 1995, and is expected to jump againto 5.1 billion by the year 2025. 8 In manycases, moreover, people are moving to verylarge cities: by 2015, an estimated 1.7 billionpeople (nearly one-fourth of the world’stotal population) will be living in cities ofover 1 million people. 9 This has enormousimplications for global resource stocks, asurban communities tend to consume moreenergy, water and building materials, and togenerate far more waste products than ruralareas. The outward expansion of cities andsuburbs is also usurping areas previouslyused for agriculture, thereby adding to thepressure on the world’s remaining supply ofarable land. 10From a resource perspective, the impact ofurbanisation cannot always be distinguishedfrom that of globalisation and populationgrowth. All of these phenomena are addingto the worldwide demand for water, energyand other basic commodities. But the concentrationof more and more people in largecities does have a particularly pronouncedimpact on global water supplies, as urbanareas require vast quantities of water forsanitation and personal use, and also becausecities produce copious waste productsthat are often poured into rivers and lakes— thereby diminishing the amount of cleanwater available to other users. Providingadequate supplies of water to large urbancentres and neighbouring areas, therefore,prove to be one of the most demanding tasksfacing local and national leaders in the 21 stcentury.Resource depletionThe three factors described above —globalisation, population growth and urbanisation— are combining to create a fourth:the irreversible depletion of some nonrenewableresources. While the earthcontains large amounts of many of the mostvital materials, these supplies are not unlimitedand can be exhausted through excessiveextraction or utilisation. And, in the case ofsome vital resources, humans have reachedthis point or are likely to do so in the earlydecades of the 21 st century. For example,humans have harvested some species of fish(such as the once-prolific cod) so intensivelythat they have virtually disappeared from7 For background and data, see Peter H. Gleick (ed.), Water in Crisis: A guide to the world’s fresh water resources (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993);Sandra Postel, Last Oasis: Facing water scarcity (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997).8 World Resources Institute (WRI) (1996). World Resources 1996-1997. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 150.9 See World Resources Institute (1996), op. cit., p. 9.10 For discussion, see World Resources Institute (1996) op. cit., pp. 57-80.[ 296 ]
the world’s oceans and are not expected torecover. Similarly, some valuable types ofhardwood have largely disappeared from theworld’s forests.Of the resources that are facing depletionin the decades ahead, none is more importantto human life and society than naturalpetroleum. Oil supplies about two-fifth’s ofthe world’s basic energy supply — more thanany other source — and provides about 97per cent of the energy used for transportation.It is an essential feedstock for manyvaluable products, including plastics, fertilisers,pesticides, asphalt and certain pharmaceuticals.Petroleum is also a non-renewableresource: once we consume the existingworld supply (produced by geological processesmany eons ago), there will be noneleft for future generations. So far, humanshave consumed nearly one-half of the earth’soriginal petroleum inheritance (1.0 trillionbarrels out of the 2.2 trillion barrels thatare thought to have existed in 1860, whencommercial extraction began), but we areextracting oil at such an intensive rate thatmuch of the remaining supply could disappearin the next 30-40 years. The introductionof new technologies and fuel sources— such as ethanol, coal-to-liquids and hydrogen-poweredfuel cells — could slow therate of oil depletion in the years ahead, butat present we are continuing to increase ourtotal consumption year after year.Fresh water is a renewable resource andso will never disappear, but it can be viewedas a non-renewable substance because theearth’s habitable areas only receive a certainamount of it each year in the form ofprecipitation. Of this amount — approximately110,000 km 3 — a large share is lostto evaporation, discharge into the oceansand absorption by plants and the soil, leavingonly 12,500 km 3 for use by humans. Atpresent, we are using approximately half ofthis supply, and are increasing our utilisationat such a high rate (because of populationgrowth, urbanisation, industrialisationand irrigated agriculture) that we will beginto approach full utilisation by the middleof the century — at which point billions ofpeople can be expected to suffer from severewater shortages.Global climate changeAll of these problems are bound to be exacerbatedby the effects of global climatechange. Although climate scientists cannotbe certain about the future effects of climatechange on any particular locale, they are increasinglyconvinced that large parts of theplant will suffer from persistent droughts, diminishedrainfall, and the invasion of coastalareas by a rise in the sea level. This will,in turn, jeopardise water supplies and foodproduction in many tropical and temperateareas of the world, forcing millions ofpeople — perhaps tens or even hundreds ofmillions — to abandon their ancestral landsand migrate to other, less-severely affectedareas. The result could well be an increasein conflict over access to fresh water andarable land. 11Climate change will also effect the planet’senergy equation in various ways. An increasein severe storm activity, for example,will endanger oil and natural gas productionin such key producing areas as the Gulf ofMexico, the Persian Gulf and the North Sea.Because so much of America’s oil production,distribution and refining is concentratedin the Gulf of Mexico area, future stormslike 2005’s Hurricane Katrina will have adevastating effect on the nation’s oil output.The reduced levels of rainfall expectedfrom global warming in many parts of theworld will also reduce the flow of water intomany rivers that have been dammed for thepurpose of generating electricity; with lessrainfall, these hydro-electricity plants couldsit idle for long stretches of time.The potential for conflictTogether, these factors are producing increasingpressure on the world’s resourcebase — pressure that can only increase aswe proceed deeper into the 21 st century. Theresulting shortages are likely to produce ormagnify antagonisms between and withinsocieties as governments and factionscompete for access to or control over major11 See the 2007 report of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2007: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, available on-line at www.ipcc.ch.See also Michael T. Klare, ‘Global warming battlefields: how climate change threatens security’, Current History, November 2007, pp. 355-61.[ 297 ]
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RESOURCE COMPETITION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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