A Polycrisis refers to the phenomenon of multiple crises existing independent of one another, yet through temporal symmetry they influence and often exacerbate one another (click here to read Dr. Nicoli’s lecture at the OHPA on this subject). The Climate Crisis, created by humanity’s manipulation and abuses of the natural world, represents an existential threat and thus a danger to virtually every aspect of human existence. Climate change exists as the primary crisis in this context, further worsening and expanding secondary existing crises which existed previously, including (but not limited to) immigration, global health security and resource conflicts.
Immigration from the global south to the global north has become one of the most contentious and politically charged issues of the early 21st century; widespread political instability, international development failures and lack of economic opportunity has spurred millions of migrants to flee their homes to seek what is perceived to be far more livable and prosperous conditions in developed nations. This has created a fierce political debate in states across the global north as antiimmigration rhetoric has become weaponized across the political spectrum to distract from other systemic issues, including the climate crisis. As the world witnesses its highest rate of immigration in human history, the Climate crisis is poised to make the current situation far worse than it already is by decreasing the livability of many developing nations and thus creating millions more refugees, which is inherently tied to issues within global health security. Climate change has also created new resource conflicts, as well as spurring Petrostates to further aggression due to the perceived threat decarbonization represents to fossil-fuel producers. This article explores the secondary crises created and or exacerbated by Climate change, and how issues which have historically been viewed as unrelated are in fact intertwined how they affect one another.
Part I: The Petrostate and the existential threat of Decarbonization
Petroaggression is the phenomenon in which Petrostates, nations whose economies are heavily dependent on the exportation of oil or natural gas, use revenue from such exportation to fund conflict and pursue deliberately aggressive geopolitical actions. Jeff Colgan (2021 article) demonstrates that Petroaggression is currently the most common type of military conflict globally, and that petrostates launch more wars and last longer comparably to other conflicts. Examples include Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as well as earlier expansion into Crimea and Georgia, Iran and Qatar’s continuous funding of terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Houthis, Venezuela’s stated ambitions to capture Guyana, as well as Azerbaijan’s aggression against Armenia. All of these conflicts are either driven by an attempt to acquire more resources, directly funded by extraction revenue, or a combination of the two. Thus to label the security crises caused by such expansionist ambitions as independent in of themselves is not merely incorrect - it is rhetorically dangerous. Separating a petrostate’s status as such from its belligerent actions is unproductive as it can serve to legitimize such actions, allowing such conflicts to hide behind other labels such as “ethnic” or “cultural” rather than what they truly represent: petro-aggression.
Therefore it is imperative that the polycrisis is labelled as such; if we are able to transition to renewable energy sources rather than fossil fuels, we will reduce the source of the world’s largest driver of conflict. It is also necessary to differentiate these examples from other resource conflicts: confrontations which have begun directly due to dwindling resources in agriculture or biodiversity loss caused by the climate crisis do not fall into this category. Petroaggression and its ensuing conflicts exist in the periphery of the overall climate crisis specifically within the context decarbonization has created, however the history of Petrostates starting wars is a well evidenced phenomenon which has existed long before the popularization of Anthropocene politics in the political mainstream and before knowledge of the climate crisis was widespread.
Part II: Climate Refugees
In contrast to the previous section, the legitimate polycrisis in climate politics derives from multiple crises which have already existed and stand to be accelerated by climate change. The origins of such crises can be traced often to issues of global inequality, including food-insecurity, global health security and lack of developed healthcare infrastructure in developing nations, as well as lack of economic opportunity and political instability. All of the aforementioned have created the global refugee crisis, which has swelled to its greatest number currently seen in contemporary times. The climate crisis stands to not only exacerbate these existing issues, but also create new destabilizing circumstances which will further fuel existing problems directly related to the refugee crisis.
Resource Conflicts and Agriculture concerns
Perhaps the most obvious repercussion of a warming climate is the reduction of arable farmland across the world. Initially the most tangible effects of farmland reduction have occurred in the most at risk areas, IE states close to the equator with already warmer natural climates. Cattle wars in Nigeria have begun violent competitions to protect a dwindling supply of land for livestock to graze upon, further accelerating an already dangerous food insecurity crisis and fueling new armed conflict (Bell Masys 2020). It is estimated that if even a 1% increase in the real price of staple food crops globally could render another 16 million people food-insecure (Patz et al 2007). However the imminency and global nature of such a crisis is only beginning to rear its ugly head. Developing nations in the global south are obvious candidates to be the most affected by the climate crisis, but other regional conflicts stemming directly from a changing climate are also increasing. China and Vietnam have come into conflict over fishing rights in the South China Sea; as China continues to claim that the territory is its own (which is in no way in accordance with international law and is highly contested by most states) as well as warming ocean temperatures reducing fish populations has created volatile circumstances. For the Vietnamese it represents what may become an existential threat: Vietnam relies on fishing the sea to feed massive swathes of its population. Similarly China and India have come to blows over access to the shared border of the Tibetan Plateau; the region is vital to both nations as the rivers therein provide clean drinking water to billions. Climate change reducing rainfall among other factors will further exacerbate tensions between the two most populous nations on the planet: while they currently are both members of the B.R.I.C.S. alliance, it is not an impossibility a conflict over the situation breaks out within the next two decades. Armed conflicts create unlivable conditions, unlivable conditions create refugees, and refugees increase strain on already beleaguered states beset by record immigration in the global north. Climate change will only continue to create inhospitable regions, which will create both more conflict and increase refugees, perpetrating a vicious cycle.
The Permafrost “Climate Bomb” and Global Health Security - Climate Connection
The connection between increasing resource conflict and climate change is well documented, however the subject of this article is more specific to the broader factors which already or will in future contribute to the global refugee crisis. Many of the most undervalued risks which threaten to make more regions uninhabitable are those which have yet to occur, but scientists are virtually certain will come to fruition if our species refuses to modify its behavior. One of the gravest set of potentialities are known as Climate Tipping Points or “CTPs,” which are irreversible events that will be triggered if the earth’s climate continues to change at its current rate. While individual potentialities exist on every continent, the highest risk is arguably the release of methane which is stored in both the ocean and permafrost in both the arctic and antarctic. If ocean temperatures continue to rise, an avalanche of methane will be released into the atmosphere further accelerating the greenhouse effect, which represents a positive feedback loop that will inevitably create an irreversible cycle. Regions near the equator, which are already contending with deadly increases in heat annually, are at risk to become uninhabitable within the next two decades which will inevitably create tens of millions of new refugees.
Another seldom acknowledged risk is the connection between undiscovered pathogens and climate change. While the origins of the Covid-19 virus still remains unknown, a possible source may have been linked to deforestation carried out in western China. It is now well documented that deforestation around the world has placed humans in contact with previously undisturbed ecosystems, which contain animals and insects which have a high probability of carrying previously unknown zoonotic pathogens. This phenomenon has been documented many times regarding the expansion of deforestation in the Amazon, as newly developed cities and settlements are at high risk of unknown diseases jumping from the jungle into human populations. This poses an obvious risk insofar as due to the interconnected nature of the globalized state of the contemporary world, pathogens are incredibly easy to spread via international travel, as displayed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the Amazon rainforest is one of the largest and most vital ecosystems for the maintenance of the global climate. Deforestation and wildfire damages have severely handicapped and manipulated the rainforest, affecting both the internal ecosystem and human’s increased interaction with it. This has had a litany of effects on the regions inhabitants and those which live in its proximity. Firstly, deforestation and rainforest destruction has been associated with droughts, altered rain patterns, heat and cold waves, as well as severe storms (Ellwagner et al. 2020). Deforestation additionally increases combustibility and the chance of forest fires, creating a vicious positive-feedback loop (Ellwagner et al. 2020). Pollutants utilized in the region for agricultural fires have decreased the air quality in both the rainforest and surrounding regions, resulting in an increased risk of gene mutations, inflammation, and cancer in neighboring populations (Ellwagner et al. 2020). Unsurprisingly, respiratory illnesses in the southern Amazonian reign increased dramatically in 2019 and have continued to increase due to the burning of pollutant materials (Ellwagner et al. 2020).
Estimates by the IPCC purport that the Amazonian region would suffer a 6-8 degree temperature increase by the end of the century without significant measures would have a profound effect on the ecosystem, resulting in many effects to the local health of relevant populations (Ellwagner et al. 2020). These include, but are not limited to: manipulation of pathogens in their natural habitats, increasing disease proliferation in adjacent urban areas, and rainfall and temperature changes which increase pathogen survival as well as replication rates to human hosts (Ellwagner et al. 2020). Expansion of urban areas without robust sanitation measures, which is common in the Amazonian region, also risks increasing pathogen survival rates via diarrheal diseases (Ellwagner et al. 2020). Thus this litany of potentially dangerous health issues will only continue to create a growing incentive for the affected population which live adjacent to the rainforest to emigrate to a less volatile region.
Furthermore, as certain areas grow increasingly warmer, regional diseases are increasing in transmission and potency. Malaria is one of the world’s most wide-spread and fatal vector-borne disease, accounting for the deaths of up to two-million people per year globally, which up to a quarter are children (Sachs and Malaney, 2002). Malaria’s base reproduction rate is far higher in regions which are warm and humid rather than more temperate regions, however as these areas continue to warm due to greenhouse gas emissions, potentially temperate regions which were previously inhospitable suddenly become viable for replication. Not only will this increase proliferation of the disease in new regions, it will spur further migration.
Another notable disease which has also increased due to a warming climate is Dengue fever. Previously only found in extremely humid and warm climates predominantly in Africa, cases have increased due to climate change. The reason for which, similar to Malaria, is the disease is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, whose natural tolerance habitat is expanding (Bell and Masys 2020). This has heralded both an increase in the number of mosquitos, lengthens the breeding season and decreases the incubation period, directly accounting for a rise in cases. Malaria and Dengue both represent some of the most pressing health crises in Africa; increased temperatures due to a warming climate threaten to create an already volatile situation borderline untenable. The Climate crisis is an existential threat in its own right, however it has already begun to have a calamitous effect on existing crises. As climate change becomes increasingly worse, it will only continue to create additional crises as well as exacerbate existing ones. Climate refugees in particular are a recent phenomenon, but they will only begin to increase as disproportionately affected areas become inhospitable.
Article by Conall Hirsch