Rwanda as an example of the dangers of climate change
Erik Solheim, the Norwegian minister for Environment and International Development. (Gopal Chitrakar/Reuters)
Global warming could have a devastating effect on parts of the world with especially large, impoverished populations to feed. In Africa, global warming is expected to bring more desertification and reductions in available arable land. In India and China, the effects are expected to be severe water shortages and reduced capacity for irrigation. Rising sea levels could inundate many coastal towns and cities and provoke mass migrations.
The results could shape the history of the next century if it leads to more instability, according to comments and reports issued by European Union officials, Britain and advisers to the United States government.
The question that arises at many meetings on global security and climate change is how much of this is already underway.
Today, Erik Solheim, the Norwegian minister for environment and international development, said extreme pressure on land and water in Darfur was a factor behind the war there, and that similar factors in Rwanda helped to fuel the genocide there during the 1990s.
Solheim, speaking at a panel held by Friends of Europe in Brussels, was careful to say there was "no direct link between climate change and genocide in Rwanda." But he said events there were a guide to what could happen in the future. "The dream of land was the real issue" in Rwanda, he said. "We may see similar developments in other places if we don't relieve that pressure."
Should politicians use the prospect of war as part of their rallying cry to tackle global warming? Or are such arguments in fact too prospective to be convincing ones for most citizens and governments?
--
Jean-Louis Kayitenkore
Procurement Consultant
Gsm: +250-08470205
Home: +250-55104140
P.O. Box 3867
Kigali-Rwanda
East Africa
Blog: http://www.cepgl.blogspot.com
Skype ID : Kayisa66
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment