CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE THREAT OF PERMANENT INSECURITY

We are used to think of disasters as sudden, unexpected, brief, localized, although devastating events, like an earthquake could be. A new threat is now growing, climate change, and it carries with it the possibility of a permanently unpredictable general scenario.The intake of excess energy in the atmosphere due to the greenhouse effect has already surfaced with a chain of rather exceptional climatic events throughout the planet. Extreme weather events”, as they are called, must therefore be taken more and more into account as a serious possibility in terms of preparedness and alert. Yet weather extremes – that correspond to the common notion of disasters as localized and sudden happenings – are only the surface of the problem. By modifying climate patterns, global warming is likely to introduce a more subtle but also more fundamental challenge in governance and shapes a new definition of disaster”. We depend on the predictability of climate to plan many essential socio-economic activities: agriculture, water management, infrastructures, fisheries, tourism and so on. If rainfall, winds and temperatures change – in a more or less sudden or extreme way – the system must be prepared to deal with consequences that expand throughout society and economy: a drought, even not a sudden or terrible one, hits revenues, distorts the markets, triggers speculation, fuels unemployment and much more. It carries with it a potential of social suffering and instability that cannot be dealt with only locally. A pattern of diminishing snowfall on the Alborz chain implies an emergency response at first, but also a revision of infrastructural, urban and agricultural policies in the longer term.And climate change does not only surface at a local scale: sudden violent and extreme events as much as long term changes in patterns have consequences that go well beyond boundaries: migrations, alterations of markets, conflicts – even in other countries – can create emergencies that affect us all.We are facing an evolution that could prove to be a disaster even without disasters: a much greater complexity, we must get ready!