World in Transition
Subtitle: climate change as a security risk : summary for policy-makers
By: German Advisory Counsil on Global Change, R. Schubert ... [et al.]. [Transl.: Christopher Hay]
Contributors: Deutschland. Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Globale Umweltvera nderungen
Publisher: German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Berlin
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Number of pages: 271
ISBN-13: 9783936191202
Subjects: Atmospheric Greenhouse effect; International Security; Climatic changes; Social aspects; International cooperation; Global warming
Other titles: Climate change as a security risk
Description: Without resolute counteraction, climate change will overstretch many societies' adaptive capacities within the coming decades. This could result in destabilization and violence, jeopardizing national and international security to a new degree. However, climate change could also unite the international community, provided that it recognizes climate change as a threat to humankind and soon sets the course for the avoidance of dangerous anthropogenic climate change by adopting a dynamic and globally coordinated climate policy. If it fails to do so, climate change will draw ever-deeper lines of division and conflict in international relations, triggering numerous conflicts between and within countries over the distribution of resources, especially water and land, over the management of migration, or over compensation payments between the countries mainly responsible for climate change and those countries most affected by its destructive effects. That is the backdrop against which WBGU, in this flagship report, summarizes the state-of-the-art of science on the subject of "Climate Change as a Security Risk". It is based on the findings of research into environmental conflicts, the causes of war, and of climate impact research. It appraises past experience but also ventures to cast a glance far into the future in order to assess the likely impacts of climate change on societies, nation-states, regions and the international system.
Notes: Title from title screen (viewed Feb 5, 2008).

Mode of access: Internet.

System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.