Panelists debate climate change and security
The current floods are highlighting the effects of Climate change, and its impact to the economy and the population. It is an issue that has also been top on the agenda for scientists, environmentalists and policy makers worldwide… And today in Belize City, Security and Climate Change was the theme in the third of a series of presentations hosted by the Ministry of National Security and the British High Commission. Facilitating the discussions were two experts from the Royal United Services Institute of the United Kingdom, Dr. Tobias Feakin and Shiloh Fetzek. We asked Dr. Feakin to explain how climate can affect a country’s security.
Dr. Tobias Feakin, Dir., Homeland Security & Resilience Dept., RUSI
“Climate change will act as an additional stress upon already fragile states or regions of the world and if increasing temperatures continue in the way that they are, will potentially dry out already fertile regions of land which will lead to decrease in food production and access of fresh water which could lead to stresses on the people living in those areas and potentially lead to conflict.”
Kendra Griffith
“Has this already started occurring?”
Dr. Tobias Feakin
“Certainly, if we look at regions like Darfur and Sub-Saharan Africa, we’ve already seen water shortages and also access to fertile regions of land acting as an additional push factor on the course to conflict taking place there. Obviously, that is in association with political tensions and rivalries that have been taking place in that region.”
Brig. Gen (Ret’d) Lloyd Gillett
“We’ve geared these presentations to policy makers, people in the N.G.O. community, people in the defence force and security forces and students of the University of Belize because they are the future leaders. This will affect their lives in the future.”
For British High Commissioner, Patrick Ashworth, the current flooding disaster highlights the need for ongoing discussion on climate change.
Patrick Ashworth, British High Commissioner
“Climate change and security is an important issue and probably never more of an important issue than you see in Belize at the moment with the disaster that has slowly unfolded over the past ten days. And you can imagine if this kind of disaster that we have happened more frequently and happened with more force and more intensity, it would bring into question how the government would be able to carry out its functions and how it would be able to guarantee food supply, how it would be able to guarantee clean fresh water to people.”
Brig. Gen (Ret’d) Lloyd Gillett
“One of the national security goals is to mitigate the effects of slow and rapid onset disasters and there is a lot of strategic actions that we need to put in place to mitigate against the effects of climate change and the new weather phenomenon that are going to be affecting this region.”
Dr. Tobias Feakin
“I must commend the Belizean national forces because they already have an admirable strategy for encountering these types of incidence, but they need to think about how they create resilience within a country, that is the ability of a country to bounce back quickly and effectively to business as normal after these kinds of events. That means having more flexible force structures which can deal with a range of conflict rather than just dealing with conflict per se.”
The presentations were held at the George Price Centre and the U.B. Jaguar Auditorium in Belmopan and at the Radisson in Belize City.
In related news, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre is inviting the public to attend two forums on the Consequences of Climate Change and Initiative to Reduce Risks. The first session will be held at the U.W.I. auditorium in Belize City on Monday at six-thirty p.m. The second will take place at the George Prince Centre in Belmopan on Tuesday, starting at six p.m. The forums will have the participation of Dr. Martin Parry, Co-Chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. According to a press release from the Climate Change Centre, Dr. Parry will share current information and discuss how the global community may avert some of the extreme consequences of climate change.
