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ECOLOGICAL THREAT REGISTER THREAT ECOLOGICAL ECOLOGICAL THREAT REGISTER 2020 2020 UNDERSTANDING ECOLOGICAL THREATS, RESILIENCE AND PEACE Institute for Economics & Peace Quantifying Peace and its Benefits The Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress. IEP achieves its goals by developing new conceptual frameworks to define peacefulness; providing metrics for measuring peace; and uncovering the relationships between business, peace and prosperity as well as promoting a better understanding of the cultural, economic and political factors that create peace. IEP is headquartered in Sydney, with offices in New York, The Hague, Mexico City, Brussels and Harare. It works with a wide range of partners internationally and collaborates with intergovernmental organisations on measuring and communicating the economic value of peace. For more information visit www.economicsandpeace.org Please cite this report as: Institute for Economics & Peace. Ecological Threat Register 2020: Understanding Ecological Threats, Resilience and Peace, Sydney, September 2020. Available from: http://visionofhumanity.org/reports (accessed Date Month Year). SPECIAL THANKS to Mercy Corps, the Stimson Center, UN75, GCSP and the Institute for Climate and Peace for their cooperation in the launch, PR and marketing activities of the Ecological Threat Register. Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 Key Findings 4 Ecological Threat Register 7 Overview 8 Ecological Threat Register Groups 10 Catastrophic Ecological Threats 12 Regional Overview 13 Ecological Threat Domains 18 Resource Scarcity, Peace and Conflict 22 Food Insecurity, Water Stress and Peacefulness 23 Population Growth, Economic Growth and Peacefulness 26 A Snapshot of Global Food Security 28 Undernourishment and Food Insecurity 32 Food Price Volatility 34 A Snapshot of Global Water Stress 38 Water Usage and Stress 43 Water Stress and Conflict 47 Natural Disasters 48 The Trend in Natural Disasters 49 Deaths and Displacement from Natural Disasters 51 Positive Peace, Resilience and Ecological Threats 4 57 Ecological Threat Hotspots 60 Shock And Resilience 65 Positive Peace and Resilience to Ecological Threats 67 Resource Depletion Threats 71 Natural Disasters 76 Resilience and Development Assistance 5 78 Foreign Aid and Resilience to Ecological Threats 79 Programmatic Approaches to Resilience Building 82 Appendix A: Ecological Threat Register Methodology 84 Appendix B: Ecological Threat Count and Positive Peace Status by Country 85 Endnotes 88 ECOLOGICAL THREAT REGISTER 2020 | 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This is the inaugural edition of the Ecological Threat the effects of these ecological threats, however, they Register (ETR), which covers 157 independent states will not be immune from spill over effects, such as large and territories. Produced by the Institute for Economics flows of refugees. The refugee crisis of 2015 highlights and Peace (IEP), the ETR measures ecological threats that even relatively small numbers of refugees, that countries are currently facing and provides equivalent to half a per cent of Europe’s population, can projections to 2050. The ETR is unique in that it cause considerable unrest and shift political systems. combines measures of resilience with the most comprehensive ecological data available to shed light The ETR results show that 141 countries are exposed to on the countries least likely to cope with extreme at least one ecological threat between now and 2050. ecological shocks, now and into the future. The 19 countries with the highest number of threats have a population of 2.1 billion people. These countries The ETR includes: population growth, water stress, food face four to six ecological threats and more than half insecurity, droughts, floods, cyclones and rising are among the 40 least peaceful nations. The three temperature and sea levels. In addition, the report uses countries with the highest exposure to ecological IEP’s Positive Peace framework to identify areas where shocks are Afghanistan, which is facing six ecological resilience is unlikely to be strong enough to adapt or threats and Mozambique and Namibia, which are each cope with these future shocks. The ETR clusters threats facing five. Another 16 countries are facing four into two major domains: resource scarcity and natural ecological threats. disasters. The resource scarcity domain includes food insecurity, water scarcity and high population growth. Approximately one billion people live in countries that The natural disaster domain measures the threat of do not have the resilience to deal with the ecological floods, droughts, cyclones, sea level rise and rising changes they are expected to face between now and temperatures. 2050. Not all of these people will be displaced, however it is likely that a large number of them will be. Pakistan, The ETR identifies three clusters of ecological hotspots, with 220 million people is the country with the largest which are particularly susceptible to collapse: number of people at risk, followed by Iran with 84 million people at risk. In such circumstances, even • The Sahel-Horn belt of Africa, from Mauritania to small events could spiral into instability and violence Somalia; leading to mass population displacement, which in turn • The Southern African belt, from Angola to would have negative implications for regional and Madagascar; global security. • The Middle East and Central Asian belt, from Syria to Pakistan. Ecological threats in many cases lead to humanitarian emergencies. Currently, more than two billion people Within these hotspots the most fragile countries will globally face uncertain access to sufficient food for a include Iran, Mozambique, Madagascar, Pakistan and healthy life. This number is likely to increase to 3.5 Kenya. These countries are broadly stable now but have billion by 2050. Both hunger and food insecurity have high exposure to ecological threats and low and increased since 2014, with an additional 300 million deteriorating Positive Peace, which means they are at a people now facing food insecurity. The global demand higher risk of future collapse. In addition, Syria, for food is projected to increase by 50 per cent by Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Central African Republic, 2050, which means that without a substantial increase are already suffering from ongoing conflicts and are in supply, many more people will be at risk of hunger also highly exposed to ecological threats. This group of and food insecurity. Even with increased food countries are already trapped in a vicious cycle where production, it is not clear that this will provide those competition for scarce resources creates conflict and most in need with more food as the increased demand conflict in turn leads to further resource depletion. The will come from the rising middle class of Asia. The world’s least resilient countries, when faced with COVID-19 pandemic is also predicted to negatively ecological breakdowns, are more likely to experience impact global food security and has not been factored civil unrest, political instability, social fragmentation into this analysis. and economic collapse. The world’s least peaceful countries are amongst the High resilience regions, such as Europe and North countries with the highest levels of food insecurity. America, have superior coping capacities to mitigate Yemen is a testament to this with the largest number of ECOLOGICAL THREAT REGISTER 2020 | 2 people facing starvation in 2020. In addition, 65 per and 2019. France, Italy, Turkey, Romania and the UK cent of people in countries with low peace and low have experienced the highest number of incidents in income experience an inability to afford adequate food Europe, accounting for a third of the regional total at all times. Among the OECD countries, 16 per cent of between them. the people cannot afford food at all the times, while 2.7 per cent are considered undernourished. This Ecological disasters displace an average of 24 million highlights the fact that people even in the richest people per year with an additional seven million countries are at risk of food insecurity. displaced by armed conflict. If this rate continues, 1.2 billion people could be displaced globally by 2050. Regionally, more than half of the population in sub- However, the rate is likely to increase. The majority of Saharan Africa and one third of the population in South these people will be displaced within their country or Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle into neighbouring regions. However, UNHCR estimates East and North Africa are facing moderate to severe show that at least one in five people move beyond their food insecurity. Currently 18 of the 20 most food country or region. Population displacement due to insecure countries are located in sub-Saharan Africa. ecological threats and climate change could regularly The five most food insecure countries are Sierra Leone, surpass the European migration crisis of 2015. Liberia, Niger, Malawi and Lesotho, where more than half of the population experience severe food Although data on Official Development Assistance insecurity. (ODA) is available, there is currently no publicly available database which tracks funding from The demand for water is projected to reach crisis levels International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) for some regions over the next few decades. The ETR and