Two senior foreign policy officials from the European Union says in a new report that the EU should “brace itself” for a new and much larger wave of migration, caused by the effects of climate change. According to their report climate change “threatens to severely destabilise the planet” and will make a fifth of the worlds population homeless.

Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU’s chief foreign policy coordinator and the European commissioner for external relations, says that within a decade “there will be millions of environmental migrants, with climate change as one of the major drivers of this phenomenon,” and that “Europe must expect substantially increased migratory pressure.”

The report says that the devastating effects of climate change will be “felt far away from Europe,” but that the problems will eventually come knocking on its door. People, especially the poor, will suffer in places like south Asia, the Middle East, central Asia, Africa and Latin America.

“This could be in the form of mass migration, destabilisation of parts of the world vital to European security, radicalisation of politics and populations, north-south conflict because of the perceived injustice of the causes and effects of global warming, famines caused by arable land loss, wars over water, energy, and other natural resources.”

Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner also say that the new world order caused by climate change will undermine the democratic and civil UN system.

“The multilateral system is at risk if the international community fails to address the threats. Climate change impacts will fuel the politics of resentment between those most responsible for climate change and those most affected by it … and drive political tension nationally and internationally.”

It will be interesting to see if EU will continue on the path to a fortress society or if it will open up its borders to environment refugees. If our leaders doesn’t decide to do anything adequate to stop climate change I personally find that to be, unfortunately, very unlikely.

No matter how much we in the EU need “fresh blood” to keep our welfare systems going, we will probably in a near future have turned the once democratic institution of EU into an ecofascist fortress.

BBC / EU warns of climate change threat.

An EU report says climate change will have a growing impact on global security, multiplying existing threats such as shortages of food and water.

Financial Times / Climate ‘threatens’ European security.

Climate change poses serious security risks for the European Union, ranging from sharper competition for global energy resources to the arrival of numerous “environmental migrants” [...] In the Middle East for example, “existing tensions over access to water are almost certain to intensify … leading to further political instability with detrimental implications for Europe’s energy security and other interests” [...] “A further dimension of competition for energy resources lies in potential conflict over resources in Polar regions which will become exploitable as a consequence of global warming.” [...] “Already today climate change is having a major impact on the conflict in and around Darfur.”

With Canadian perspective: Political Crisis Looms In Arctic, Report Says.

“The United States should not underestimate Canadian passions on this issue [...] Unless Washington leads the way toward a multilateral diplomatic solution, the Arctic could descend into armed conflict.” – former U.S. Coast Guard commander Scott Borgerson.

EUobserver.com / EU must boost military capabilities in face of climate change.

The EU and member states should further build up their capabilities with regards to civil protection, and civil and military crisis management and disaster response instruments to react to the security risks posed by climate change [...] “Significant decreases [in crop yields] are expected to hit Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia and thus affect stability in a vitally strategic region for Europe,” predicts the report, while “water supply in Israel might fall by 60 percent over this century.” [...] “Some of these recommendations may well be sensible, but there’s no way of knowing until they’re fleshed out. The devil is in the detail. It’s important to know what powers the EU will assume in the event,” said Tony Bunyan, head of civil liberties group Statewatch.

Benno Hansen is the author of Ecowar – a blog about links between conflict and natural resources.

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