• Conflicts over diminished resources: shortage of water, reduction of agricultural land, increased flooding and longer droughts may lead to economic losses and increased food prices. The overall effect is that climate change will fuel existing conflicts over depleting resources, especially where access to those resources is politicised.
• Economic damage and risk to coastal cities and critical infrastructure: Mega-cities, with their supporting infrastructure, such as port facilities and oil refineries, are often located by the sea or in river deltas. Sea-level rise and the increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters pose a serious threat to these regions and their economic prospects. The East coasts of China and India as well as the Caribbean region and Central America would be particularly affected. An increase in disasters and humanitarian crises will lead to immense pressure on the resources of donor countries, including capacities for emergency relief operations.
• Loss of territory and border disputes: Receding coastlines and submergence of large areas could result in loss of territory, including entire countries such as small island states. 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. Desertification could trigger a vicious circle of degradation, migration and conflicts over territory and borders that threatens the political stability of countries and regions.
• Environmentally-induced migration: Europe must expect more migration from its neighbouring and more vulnerable countries.
• Situations of fragility and radicalization: Climate change may significantly increase instability in weak or failing states by over-stretching the already limited capacity of governments to respond effectively to the challenges they face.
• Tension over energy supply: Intensified competition over access to, and control over, energy resources is, and will continue to be, a cause of instability. There is a possibility of greater energy insecurity and greater competition for resources. As previously inaccessible regions open up due to the effects of climate change, the scramble for resources will intensify.
• Pressure on international governance: Climate change impacts will fuel the politics of resentment between those most responsible for climate change and those most affected by it. Impacts of climate mitigation policies (or policy failures) will thus drive political tension nationally and internationally.

1. Climate-induced degradation of freshwater resources.  1.1 billion people are currently without access to safe drinking water. The situation could worsen for hundreds of millions of people
2. Climate-induced decline in food production.More than 850 million people worldwide are currently undernourished. This situation is likely to worsen in future as a result of climate change, due to a drop in agricultural productivity, desertification, soil salinization and water scarcity.
3. Climate-induced increase in storm and flood disasters.The risk of natural disasters occurring in many cities and industrial regions in coastal zones will be further amplified by deforestation along the upper reaches of rivers, land subsidence in large urban areas and the ever greater spatial concentration of populations and assets.
4. Environmentally-induced migration.It can be assumed that the number of environmental migrants will substantially rise in future due to the impacts of climate change. Most environmental migration is initially likely to occur within national borders. Transboundary environmental migration will mainly take the form of south-south migration, but Europe and North America must also expect substantially increased migratory pressure from regions most at risk from climate change.

Six threats to international stability and security

In light of current knowledge about the social impacts of climate change, the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WGBU) identifies the following six key threats to international security and stability which will arise if climate change mitigation fails (2):

1. Possible increase in the number of weak and fragile states as a result of climate change.
2. Risks for global economic development.Unabated climate change is likely to result in substantially reduced rates of growth. This will increasingly limit the economic scope, at national and international level.
3. Risks of growing international distributional conflicts between the main drivers of climate change and those most affected.A key line of conflict in global politics in the 21st century would divide not only the industrialized and the developing countries, but also the rapidly growing newly industrializing countries and the poorer developing countries. The international community is ill-prepared at present for this type of distributional conflict.
4. The risk to human rights and the industrialized countries’ legitimacy as global governance actors.Unabated climate change could plunge the industrialized countries in particular into crises of legitimacy and limit their international scope for action.
5. Triggering and intensification of migration.The associated conflict potential is considerable, especially as “environmental migrants” are currently not provided for in international law.
6. Overstretching of classic security policy.A climate-induced increase in the number of weak and fragile states or even the destabilization of entire sub regions would overstretch conventional security policy.

• Developing and strengthening an institutional and legislative disaster risk management framework to assist in budget appropriations, planning, and finally the implementation of disaster risk management plans. Ensuring legal statutes are clear and hazard risk management is properly funded are the first steps. A strong system should have a robust preparedness program with plans, training, and exercises for all levels of its emergency management system;
• Improve disaster risk management capacityby clarifying the roles and responsibilities of local and national governmental bodies in risk reduction, emergency preparedness and response;
• Completing hazard risk assessments and corresponding hazard maps. Risk assessments are also crucial for policymakers to evaluate the costs and benefits of risk mitigation investments and to prioritize these investments;
• Hazard-specific investments toreduce the risk of hydrometeorological hazards and increase adaptive capacity;
• Strengthen technical capacity of emergency responders. This includes purchasing personal protective equipment, tools, and vehicles, emergency communications and information systems, and public awareness of natural hazard risks and of preparedness and response actions;
• The use and price of pooled risk approaches, capital market mechanisms, insurance and credit instruments. These measures can be calculated in combination to reduce the cost of financial protection for emergency reconstruction and to avoid the economic and budgetary disruptions this would otherwise entail.

1. Shaping global political change.In order to ensure the acceptance and, above all, the constructive participation of the ascendant new world powers China and India, a multilateral order is needed which is viewed as fair by all countries.
2. Reforming the United Nations.In general, WBGU is in favour of better coordinating the efforts of the relevant organizations and programmes under the auspices of the UN and significantly enhancing their role in the interests of prevention.
3. Ambitiously pursuing international climate policy.WBGU recommends the adoption, as an international standard, of a global temperature guard rail limiting the rise in near-surface air temperature to a maximum of 2°C relative to the pre-industrial value.
4. Implementing the energy turnaround in the EU.In order to be a credible negotiating partner within the climate process, the European Union should achieve its Kyoto commitments and set more far reaching and ambitious reduction targets for the future. In WBGU’s view, a 30 % reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with the 1990 baseline and an 80 % reduction target by 2050 are appropriate.
5. Developing mitigation strategies through partnerships. In development cooperation, path dependencies of emissions-intensive technologies should be avoided, and high priority should be granted to the promotion of sustainable energy systems in order to overcome energy poverty.
6. Supporting adaptation strategies for developing countries.Adapting water resources management to climate change and avoiding water crises, a.o. in order to avoid water conflicts, cooperation on transboundary water management should be encouraged for regions sharing waters. Focus should also be on gearing agriculture to climate change.
7. Stabilizing fragile states and weak states that are additionally threatened by climate change. Crisis prevention costs far less than crisis management at a later stage. Specifically, fragile states’ capacities to manage environmental risks must be maintained and reinforced, and if necessary re-established, even under difficult political and economic conditions.
8. Managing migration through cooperation and further developing international law.
9. Expanding global information and early warning systems.Both the gradual changes caused by climate change and the natural disasters which are expected to occur with increasing frequency could destabilize the affected regions and, in extreme cases, constitute a major risk factor for national and international security. Global information and early warning systems can therefore do much to mitigate these adverse effects and make a major contribution to conflict and crisis prevention.

WBGU anticipates that in the event of mitigation efforts failing, climate-induced security risks will begin to manifest themselves in various regions of the world from around 2025–2040. The key challenge is to take resolute climate policy action within the next 10–15 years, in order to avert the socioeconomic distortions and implications for international security that will otherwise intensify in subsequent decades (2).