Assessing the security implications of climate change for West Africa Country case studies of Ghana and Burkina Faso Oli Brown and Alec Crawford Denmark series-Ghana.qx 5/5/08 9:04 AM Page i Assessing the security implications of climate change for West Africa Country case studies of Ghana and Burkina Faso Oli Brown and Alec Crawford IISD Denmark series-Ghana.qx 5/5/08 9:04 AM Page ii © 2008, International Institute for Sustainable Development The International Institute for Sustainable Development contributes to sus- tainable development by advancing policy recommendations on internation- al trade and investment, economic policy, climate change and energy, meas- urement and assessment, and sustainable natural resources management. Through the Internet, we report on international negotiations and share knowledge gained through collaborative projects with global partners, result- ing in more rigorous research, capacity building in developing countries and better dialogue between North and South. IISD’s vision is better living for all—sustainably; its mission is to champion innovation, enabling societies to live sustainably. IISD is registered as a chari- table organization in Canada and has 501(c)(3) status in the United States. IISD receives core operating support from the Government of Canada, pro- vided through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Environment Canada; and from the Province of Manitoba. The Institute receives project funding from numerous governments inside and outside Canada, United Nations agencies, foundations and the private sector. Assessing the security implications of climate change for West Africa: Country case studies of Ghana and Burkina Faso By Oli Brown and Alec Crawford ISBN 978-1-894784-13-9 International Institute for Sustainable Development 161 Portage Avenue East, 6th Floor Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R3B 0Y4 Tel.: +1 (204) 958-7700 Fax: +1 (204) 958-7710 Web site: http://www.iisd.org This work is a product of the “Climate Change and Foreign Policy Project – Phase II” of the IISD. The research was conducted independently by IISD with financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Denmark. The views expressed remain those of IISD and do not necessarily reflect those of the funder, nor should they be attributed to them. Cover: iStockphoto Text printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Denmark series-Ghana.qx 5/5/08 9:04 AM Page iii Foreword There is an increasing realization within the international community that climate change is an issue with implications across the full sweep of gov- ernment policy. No longer can we consider climate change as merely an environmental problem or an energy challenge. It is also a huge develop- ment challenge. Climate change will redraw our coastlines, alter where we can grow food, change where we can find water, expose us to fiercer storms or more severe droughts and likely force large numbers of people to move from their homelands. Warming temperatures are already opening up new resources for exploitation, such as oil and gas supplies previously covered by the Arctic ice. Climate change will affect the economic and agricultural base of many countries, particularly vulnerable developing countries, and may undermine their comparative advantage on world markets. It will stress existing mechanisms for sharing resources like transboundary rivers and migratory fish stocks. It is clear that climate change holds the potential to exacerbate existing tensions and even trigger new ones. Africa, with its history of resource, ethnic and inter-state conflict, is seen as particularly vulnerable. There is certainly irony in the fact that Africa, the continent least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, may be the worst affected by climate change. Broad climate change projections paint a dis- turbing picture of increasingly scarce water, collapsing agricultural yields, encroaching desert and damaged coastal infrastructure. These challenges threaten to undermine the “carrying capacity” of large parts of Africa, caus- ing destabilizing population movements and raising tensions over dwin- dling strategic resources. Climate change could be one more factor that tips fragile states towards failure. Denmark has long-standing relationships with the two countries described in this report. Official development cooperation between Ghana and Denmark stretches back 50 years with Ghana and 35 years with Burkina Faso. This report also forms part of a larger process of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to “climate proof” its development cooperation pro- grams. This means that climate change will be taken into account to ensure climate-friendly development, design projects that are resilient to future climate change, and help local communities adapt to the specific challenges they face. Assessing the security implications of climate change for West Africa iii Denmark series-Ghana.qx 5/5/08 9:04 AM Page iv We hope that this publication will be of use to academics, journalists and development practitioners trying to address the interaction between climate change and security. Ib Petersen State Secretary, Ambassador Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark Assessing the security implications of climate change for West Africa iv Denmark series-Ghana.qx 5/5/08 9:04 AM Page v Preface Since its creation in 1990, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has been working to raise awareness of climate change, to develop ways to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and to help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. For more than 10 years, IISD has been investigating the ways in which environmental change and natural resources interact with the causes, conduct and resolution of violent conflict. These once-distinct areas of research are now coming together. Climate change represents the latest of a series of environmental drivers of human conflict that have been identified over the past decades: drought, desertifi- cation, land degradation, failing water supplies, deforestation and fisheries depletion. Given that climate change could exacerbate the negative impacts of many of these factors it is perhaps no surprise that climate change is being cast as the “mother of all environmental security prob- lems.” It is encouraging to see increasing interest in the security implications of climate change. It is an important area that requires increased understand- ing. But too often this story is told by Northern academics and Northern politicians without much in the way of consultation or discussion with people in the countries supposedly affected. The challenge now is to understand how climate change could affect polit- ical and economic stability and to develop effective ways to address those problems. Drawing on field visits, workshops and interviews with local experts, this research project analyzes the prospects of two neighbouring, contrasting countries in West Africa (Ghana and Burkina Faso) under dif- ferent climate change scenarios. It attempts to cut through the occasional- ly shrill doomsday scenarios with a clear analysis of where the areas of con- cern lie and hopes to add nuance, texture and detail to the debate on the security implications of climate change. I would like to thank the IISD team for their work—in particular Oli Brown and Alec Crawford. I would also like to thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark who funded this project. The publication is the latest in a series we have produced in cooperation with the Ministry exam- ining some of the major challenges facing sustainable development. The earlier titles—Global Environmental Governance: A reform agenda and Assessing the security implications of climate change for West Africa v Denmark series-Ghana.qx 5/5/08 9:04 AM Page vi Climate Change and Foreign Policy: An exploration of options for greater inte- gration—are available for download at http://www.iisd.org/publications. We hope you will find them of interest and value. David Runnalls President and Chief Executive Officer International Institute for Sustainable Development Assessing the security implications of climate change for West Africa vi Denmark series-Ghana.qx 5/5/08 9:04 AM Page vii Summary Over the past decades, the way we talk about climate change has evolved. Traditionally seen as an environmental and an energy issue, climate change is now also being cast as a threat to international peace and security. Analysts argue that climate change exacerbates existing tensions and triggers new con- flicts by redrawing the maps of water availability, food security, disease preva- lence, coastal boundaries and population distribution. Africa, though the least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, is seen as the continent most likely to suffer its worst consequences—a function of the continent’s reliance on climate-dependent sectors (such as rain-fed agriculture) and its history of resource, ethnic and political conflict. The security implications of climate change have become the subject of unprece- dented international attention; in 2007 the focus of a Security Council debate and the Nobel Peace prize. There have been some attempts to construct scenarios of the security implications of climate change at a global scale. But the country-level security impacts of climate change have been lost in the midst of the political rhetoric. Local experts in the subject countries are rarely consulted. This paper is a modest effort to address this