Speakers discussed the impact of environmental challenges on global conflict at Saturday's 2 p.m. panel, titled "Resource Wars and the Changing Climate of Conflict."
The program explored how the depletion of natural resources, along with man-made climate change, has transformed the nature of political conflict across the globe. Panelists analyzed these emerging conflict trends and proposed solutions towards the amelioration of these disputes.
Professor of International Environmental Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy William Moomaw kicked off the discussion by commenting on recent resource wars in nations such as Brazil and Sudan.
"These conflicts are intense and deadly," he said. "They're growing worse because of an additional factor that we really haven't confronted before: climate change.Particularly in Africa, climate change is greatly reducing access to water and exacerbating the conflicts among these people."
Moomaw emphasized that the conflict has multiple dimensions and that no war, local or international, can be attributed exclusively to climate change.
"Climate change is often not the cause of these problems but an instability multiplier," he said. "Whatever the problem is, climate change makes it more severe and intensifies the tension between groups going after an ever-shrinking resource."
In his presentation on oil and mining corporations, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Clinical Professor of Human Rights Law at Columbia Law School Peter Rosenblum explained the efforts of campaign groups to curb the environmental damage these companies have inflicted on areas such as the eastern Congo and Nigeria.
"You have to keep in mind how much the world is changing in terms of the economics of natural resources," he said.
Former EPIIC student Sami al-Faraj (F ‘87), founder and director of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies, was presented with the EPIIC Alumni Recognition Award for his excellent statesmanship and service to the Persian Gulf region.
He later spoke about the probability of bloodshed in the Gulf region countries over limited sources of water, commenting that Kuwait is currently the most prepared state for such a resource war.
"[Water] is the most important element in any national security policy," al-Faraj said. "I believe that water will start one major war, and really soon."
