Man-made Climate change has become the defining aspect of the current era of humanity and the Earth’s history due to the sheer magnitude of the threat it poses not only to human lives but to life in and of itself. Though most scientists, experts, and politicians are able to comprehend the threat that this phenomenon poses and the damage that it has already dealt, actions to combat this threat have been (for the most part) half-hearted and lackluster. This lack of a swift response to climate may seem perplexing at first due to the risk of near total annihilation for the human race; however, once we recognize and understand the geopolitical events that climate change is intertwined with, the lack of effort becomes much more logical.
Climate Change’s eventual impact on aspects of geopolitics and international relations such as war, agriculture, migration, and trade creates an extremely unstable political climate that the vast majority of nations who are most capable of climate action are uninterested in solving due to their own self-interest. This essay will discuss how, why, and where the unstable future of geopolitics created through climate change will occur.
Many of the geopolitical disasters we see today will be severely exacerbated by the upcoming effects of climate change. One of the most prominent agreements against climate change, the Paris Agreement signed in 2015, placed the acceptable threshold of change to be 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels,[1] and that threshold was crossed for the entirety of 2024.[2] The changes that the human population has already seen in the modern day will surely only worsen over time. Climate change’s impact on the fundamental aspects of modern human society, such as trade, agriculture, food stability, and housing, will lead to an age of instability. The current heightened global temperature has already led to many disasters within already vulnerable populations within the developing world. A further rise in global temperatures from 1.2 to 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius will result in severe damage to the environment, which will then in turn cause many of the predicted geopolitical disasters, such as mass migration and scarcity wars.
Resource scarcity as a basis for war is not a foreign concept to human beings; for millennia control over trade routes, minerals, raw materials, and fertile land has driven conflict, foreign policy, and geopolitical changes. It is as important for a state to be able to impose its dominating will on its adversaries, both internal and external, through military might as it is for it to be able to provide for its citizens or maintain its function through economic means, and often these two things are deeply intertwined since without one the other will be unable to persist.[3] Following industrialization and globalization, the drive for resources has become the primary motivation for conflict due to the growing industries and inequality within and among nations, so with climate change restricting these resources, conflicts will surely arise in greater numbers across the globe.[4] Fresh water is one of the key resources under threat of running out and will result in the largest knock-on effects due to its importance to human societies through agriculture, transportation, and sanitation but also due to its irreplaceability. Researchers at the well renowned University of Colorado Boulder concluded in a 2023 report that over 53% of all lakes and reservoirs have lost significant amounts of fresh water from 1992 to 2020.[5][6] The continued depletion of vital freshwater resources compounds the already existing threat of water shortages that roughly half of the world’s population faces.[7] Many other vital resources to the economy, such as oil and rare minerals, could also be a reason for war in the future, though only as an indirect result of climate change causing increasing competition among nations.
It is paramount that people do not delude themselves into believing that these wars are a faraway threat that can be dealt with later since conflicts have already begun to arise today. Some form of conflict has already occurred in many regions due to water insecurity, including the following: mass protests occurred throughout Mexico City in 2024 over the failure of their Cutzamala water distribution system;[8] the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (also known as the cradle of civilization) have lost more than 60% of their water due to upstream dam construction by Türkiye, leading to rising tension between neighboring nations relying on the twin rivers’ continued flow;[9] and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam’s possible opening has led to calls for war by Egyptian officials.[10] It is also important to recognize which populations are most at risk of experiencing these resource- and water-fueled conflicts because who the victims are plays an extremely important role in identifying ways to impede the progression of the worst of climate change. Most nations at risk of these conflicts are from developing countries, especially nations that are reliant on transboundary river basins such as Turkey, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and much of North Africa.[11] Developing nations are among the most politically fragile, and they will also be relying on international cooperation with other developing countries if they are to avoid the worst of climate change’s effects. However, these cooperations need to not only be with their neighboring nations but with nations within the developing world as well since developed nations are the primary contributors to emissions.[12] These conflicts in the pursuit of resources are also a cause of another possible geopolitical disaster, mass migration.
Mass migration due to man-made Climate change has become an ever-growing threat as natural disasters caused by human activities have grown to be more commonplace. Human migration due to environmental conditions shifting has been a part of human history since humanity’s very inception; however, these migrations have always been a response to the natural shifting tides of the Earth’s environment and are often not acute permanent changes to the planet. These future migrations are likely to be a repercussion of a myriad of factors such as rising sea levels, conflict, rising temperatures resulting in uninhabitable areas, lack of food security, etc. Climate-induced migration’s main role is exacerbating the already dire conditions faced by the victims of various disasters, both political and natural, such as the aforementioned reasons for climate-induced migration.[13] In 2020 alone over 40 million people were forced to evacuate from their homes, and of those 40 million, 30.7 million people were forced to mobilize directly due to man-made climate disasters. By the year 2050 it is predicted that more than 143 million people will be forced to relocate due to severe weather events.[14] Droughts, desertification, and deforestation caused by climate change will result in millions shifting from certain areas of a country to another, leading to a lower quality of life for all citizens.[15] Monsoons, cyclones, and tornadoes are also a major factor in this phenomenon because of their rising number of occurrences, and as of 2024, these extreme weather events have been responsible for the majority of displacement since 2008.[16] Climate change also affects these populations in unique ways, such as the elimination of inhabitable areas due to both rising sea levels and temperatures. More than 30% of the global population lives in coastal settlements, and 8 of the 10 largest cities in the world are located along the ocean, which means that the catastrophic effects of rising sea levels could result in more than 2 billion people becoming climate refugees.[17] These various effects are most likely to heavily impact the most vulnerable populations in geopolitics.
All regions across the global south are going to be the most impacted populations due to the results of climate change. Most of the research regarding climate migrations has focused on migrations within borders due to the fact that most climate migration events haven’t been transboundary.[18] These migrations have been especially prevalent in global south regions such as Latin America, the Pacific Islands, South Asia, and Africa and mostly affect impoverished populations who are reliant on agricultural processes to survive, which results in them needing to migrate to continue to work.[19] Though transboundary migrations due to climate change are currently rare, they are unlikely to remain as such as climate change continues to persist and as it continues to destroy even more habitable areas. Today more than 27% of Southeast Asians are at risk of displacement;[20] many governments in the Pacific Islands have begun to lay plans for a “migration with dignity”;[21] and many farms have already been destroyed within South Asian countries such as India,[22] and as these destructive forces continue to worsen, more and more people will be forced to migrate to the least impacted areas, which are mostly located in the developed world [23]. These transboundary migrations are extremely likely to cause the growing right-wing forces within the developed world to be pushed to the forefront, causing further political instability within the nations that won’t be immediately ravaged by climate change.
Climate change seems as though it is a universal threat that could lead to the end of the world as humans know it, yet most governments are steadfast in their ineffectual programs against climate change.[24] This fact is quite perplexing to reckon with without the context of the state of geopolitics and economics in the world today, which provide many logical reasons as to why governments continue to use nonrenewable and pollutant energy sources. One such reason is the competition encouraged through the capitalist system. The globalist capitalist mode of production is the most prominent formation of society, and within this global economy, competition between nations naturally arises; therefore, nations must fight for their own survival, which results in a lack of diplomacy.[25] This is especially prominent within how differing nations approach climate change. The United States and other major developed nations have barely taken any measures to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.[26] These greenhouse gases are responsible for much of the planet’s change in climate, yet they are not produced at the same rate by region. The US and China alone are responsible for more than half of the world’s GHG emissions, yet these two nations will not suffer the worst of climate. The developing world is responsible for a small fraction of the GHG emissions on Earth; for example, the whole of Africa is responsible for only 7% of GHG emissions,[27] yet will suffer much worse consequences than those primarily responsible.[28] As a result, it is in the best interest of leaders of the developed world to continue with their exploitation of limited resources until the effects of climate change begin to truly damage their nations in the short term.
The need for a change in policy is certainly necessary if climate change is to be stopped before the worst actually happens. However, it is unlikely for these changes to occur if the current attitudes within the governments of the developed world persist. Mass migrations will rise and destroy many nations, both developed and developing. As the resources necessary for the continuation of societies continue to be restricted and eliminated, many conflicts will arise. These disasters will result in an unstable geopolitical climate that will result in the mass suffering of many people and the end of the current state of the world order. The only way for these effects to be prevented is through a change of attitude within the nations that are most responsible for this change, and this change in attitude would hopefully result in a united front against this change even if the current benefits of these nations will be curtailed or even if these nations wouldn’t remain powerful and prominent nations for the good of mankind. It is the responsibility of everyone to try to stop these disasters for the good of the human race.
By: Manuel Alejandro Ordonez
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