The relationship between climate change and insecurity, particularly in developing countries, is often considered moot, as the topic remains largely abstract to both the masses and the elites
Who can blame them, as they battle daily with what they consider “real life and present-day challenges,” such as food insecurity, lack of access to energy and education, ill health, and many more? While these “real-life and present-day challenges” are even linked to climate change, it is difficult to navigate through the conversation for a number of reasons, including what many consider the technical nature of climate discourse.
Yet the link between these, especially insecurity, has since been acknowledged by experts and even the United Nations.
In July 2009, the United Nations Security Council adopted UN/RES/63/281, which recognised the link between climate change and insecurity with a call for climate considerations when addressing the issue of insecurity. Yet not much attention has been paid to this linkage.
However, some of us have long since noted this intersection, having witnessed the shrinking of Lake Chad and the rising of terrorism and militancy from the region almost as fast as the lake is shrinking.
Lake Chad, formerly 25,000 square kilometres containing about 72 cubic kilometres of water and now 1,540 square kilometres containing a volume of 6.3 cubic kilometres, was an important body of freshwater serving about thirty million largely agrarian people from Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and the Republic of Chad. Its shrinking therefore led to the loss of livelihood means for fishermen, practitioners of animal husbandry, and even crop farmers who depended on it for irrigation purposes.
Consequently, the resultant effects of this have been forced migration leading to clashes for limited resources, which has seen a prevalence in herder-farmer clashes, and loss of livelihood, which has made the people vulnerable to recruitment by violent and criminal extremists.
These problems can, however, be solved by significant climate actions, including my often-repeated call for the recharge of Lake Chad backed by climate-smart practices to sustain it and open up other sustainable livelihood means for the people.
I must commend the Chief of Naval Staff of Nigeria, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla, who seems to have taken cognisance of the importance of the Lake Chad corridor to the security of the region and has thus expanded naval efforts at addressing insecurity there. This cannot stand on its own. Those efforts must be backed by strategic climate-smart efforts to simultaneously address insecurity there while also providing sustainable livelihood means that speak to the root of the insecurity.
I have always believed that the solution to problems must be to first determine the root causes. The discovery should then be backed by conscious actions aimed at addressing them.
Rep. Kama Nkemkanma is the Chair of the Committee on Climate Change and Security, House of Representatives, and Nigeria’s Parliamentary Champion for Climate Change