Climate change & national security

An African view

By Adenike Oladasu

Climate change has been classified as “mother of all risks” to national security. This may be the case, but for us in Africa it is no longer an abstract policy debate played out in think-tanks and the UN Security Council. Drought, heat, and climate-affected cyclones like Kenneth, Idai and Eloise, are taking lives, causing billions in damage, and displacing hundreds of thousands from their homes. This displacement of people away from their livelihood then works to increase food insecurity, hunger and poverty, which in turn leads to forced migration - all indicators that threaten national security. The future of climate change in Africa could mean an increase in recruitment into armed groups and further fuel to conflict.

In most of the world’s conflict hotspot regions, climate change has been implicated in making conflicts worse, as well having disastrous effects on people and the planet. Not enough attention has been paid to climate action in the form of reclaiming the landscape of people and sustaining their livelihoods. Yet active discussion about climate insecurity has been happening for over 16 years. On April 17th, 2007, an unprecedented debate was held at the UN Security Council on climate change, security and energy supplies which highlighted the impacts of climate change on conflict. The eight worst food crises in 2019, all in countries where UNHCR is operating, were linked to both climate shocks and conflict. A 2020 report from the Stockholm Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI) indicates a relationship between child recruitment and scarce rainfall in central Mali. It also showed that poor families send their children to armed groups as a form of income. This is more like a survival strategy in such a scenario because, to us in Africa, climate change increasingly means survival of the fittest. 

Climate insecurity in Africa

If climate is an increasing source of insecurity for Africans, however, it does not mean that military action is the solution. 

The more fragile a country becomes the more it creates vulnerabilities that increase insecurity, in its many various forms. The complexities of insecurity we see today are a failure of climate action and good governance.

We cannot solve the climate crisis through military action – there are more military actions than the climate action needed itself. We need to not normalize military action in place of climate action because we can’t defeat climate-induced insecurity through guns and ammunition. Silence the guns, go beyond the physical and transcend to the fight for our human rights in a changing climatic environment. 

We need to bear in mind that the more people are displaced by the climate crisis than any other cause of conflict. The more fragile a country becomes the more it creates vulnerabilities that increase insecurity, in its many various forms. The complexities of insecurity we see today are a failure of climate action and good governance. There are many schools of thought on this issue of national security; to some national insecurity is a call for more military actions while others believe that military action comes as a result of a failure to act on democratic principles such as green democracy and decency. This is not the time to keep deploying troops; rather it is time to provide basic human right needs for the people. 

In Nigeria, in the North-Eastern part faces a shrinking Lake Chad, drought, and desertification, while in the North and Central parts Nigeria is faced with floods, and clashes between farmers and herders. The southern part is also faced with floods, oil spillage in water outlets that serve as a primary source of livelihoods to indigenes so are other zones in Nigeria. Invariably, every part of Nigeria has a climate change crisis. The insecurity we see today in Nigeria is not entire just banditry, it is climate-induced. The actions we took decades ago to divert the economy from agriculture to a fossil fuel economy are what we are paying for now: a complex crisis of increasing population, with fewer waterways, land, food and other securities which are all affecting our basic human rights.

The Lake Chad crisis

If we don’t use the right approach in addressing climate change in our society today it will mean more crisis – we won’t be able to find a convergent point.

Lake Chad was once known to be one of the largest lakes in Africa and its endorheic nature makes it highly sensitive to climatic change. It has been a source of livelihood to more than 30 million people in the region across Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and some Central African countries. Since the 1960s, the lake has been greatly affected by climate change and the pressure arising for human needs especially in the Sahel, another climate change hotspot. The shrinking capacity of the lake has led to the displacement of more than 10.7 million people away from their livelihoods thereby leading to food insecurity, poverty  and hunger (for more than 2.5 million people), and gender inequality (two-third of the population). These insecurities are in turn the weapon used by armed groups to recruit people. This is why insecurity has become the order of the day. If we don’t tackle climate change, we can’t tackle insecurity. This is the reason I won’t stop advocating for the restoration of Lake Chad as part of the solutions we need in Africa and the world at large.  

If we don’t use the right approach in addressing climate change in our society today it will mean more crisis – we won’t be able to find a convergent point. One thing that remains a potential trigger of insecurity anywhere is when livelihoods are undermined by climate change. According to the research conducted by the Institute for Security Studies Office for West Africa, ''many who joined extremist groups in the region did so for economic reasons''. Africa bears the brunt of climate change crises; the climate crisis disproportionately affects us.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, human security will be progressively threatened as the climate changes “because it undermines livelihoods, compromises culture and individual identity, increases migration that people would rather have avoided, and it can undermine the ability of states to provide the conditions necessary for human security". This is why we (I Lead Climate) will keep advocating for basic human rights and the restoration of Lake Chad as part of the solution that will end the violence in Sahel and its region. Wider climate education is also essential. It is because we lack climate education as a fundamental basis for creating the change we want in our world today, that we are mistaking climate action for military action. We will keep working with all relevant stakeholders to keep our world sustainable for all.

Adenike Oladasu is a first-class graduate of Agricultural Economics from the Federal University of Agriculture Makurdi, a climate and community activist in Nigeria, and the founder of I Lead Climate. In 2019 she was recognised by Amnesty International as Ambassador of Conscience in Nigeria and selected as one of thousands of young people to attend the first UN youth climate summit. She also attended COP25 as a Nigerian youth delegate on climate finance, where she spoke at a continental press conference as an African youth representative. She has also been invited to attend several conferences including the World Economic Forum and the United Nations Youth Climate Summit.

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