Climate change threatens Mideast stability: study

Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters 2 Jun 09;

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Climate change could spark "environmental wars" in the Middle East over already scarce water supplies and dissuade Israel from any pullout from occupied Arab land, an international report said on Tuesday.

Almost 10 years of failed peace talks between Syria and Israel have focused on water in and around the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The vital resource is also a point of conflict between Israel and Palestinians seeking a state.

Regarding the Syria-Israel dispute, the report said Israeli concerns about "food security and reduced agricultural productivity could shift the strategic calculation on whether to withdraw" from the Golan Heights, occupied in a 1967 war.

"The expectation of coming environmental wars might imply that the way to deal with shrinking resources is to increase military control over them," said the Danish-funded study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, an independent organization headquartered in Canada.

The Golan supplies 30 percent of the water for the Lake of Galilee, Israel's main water reservoir.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report said sea-level rises as a result of climate change threatened to contaminate Gaza's sole aquifer supplying 1.5 million Palestinians in the territory.

The coastal aquifer, which is shared by Israel, is the only source of fresh drinking water for Gaza, controlled by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. The report said its water quality was abysmal.

In the occupied West Bank, governed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel draws more water from most aquifers shared with the territory and restricts Palestinian water use.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

Climate change will diminish water resources across the Middle East, the report said.

"In a region already considered the world's most water scarce, climate models are predicting a hotter, drier and less predictable climate," it said

"Higher temperature and less rainfall will reduce the flow of rivers and streams, slow the rate at which aquifers recharge, progressively raise sea levels and make the entire region more arid," said the study, which focused on the Levant, the ancient land now comprising Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

The report was released this week at the Danish Institute in Old Damascus, as part of activities before a major United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December that will discuss a new treaty to deal with climate.

The study raised the specter of water shortages and climate- induced crises hitting the economies of the Levant by 2050.

The Levant's population is forecast to grow in 40 years to 71 million people from last year's 42 million. Temperatures in the same period are expected to rise by 2.5 to 3.7 degrees Celsius in the summer and 2 to 3.1 degrees in the winter, changing climate zones and disrupting farming.

The area is already hit by droughts, refugee problems, social tensions, unemployment reaching up to 27 percent and decades of conflict between Arabs and Israel.

"This legacy greatly complicates efforts to collaborate over shared resources, to invest in more efficient water and energy use, to share new ways to adapt to climate change and to pursue truly multilateral action," the report said.

Even countries at peace, such as Turkey, Syria and Iraq, distrust each other when it comes to the issue, resulting in a "zero sum approach to resources, limiting and politicizing the data available on natural resources, reducing the incentives to invest in more efficient agriculture, energy and water systems and encouraging expensive, national level solutions."

Particularly vulnerable to predicted rises in sea-levels is the Lebanese coast, which accounts for 60 percent of the economic activity in the country.

"Sea level rise will impact infrastructure, increase coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers. Lebanon's narrow coastal strip along the Mediterranean could be susceptible to flooding and erosion as sea levels rise," the report said.

Tourism stands to be another loser, due to damaged Red Sea corals and a shorter skiing season in Lebanon, said the study.

(Editing by Charles Dick)

160 Syrian villages deserted 'due to climate change'
Talal El-atrache, Yahoo News 2 Jun 09;

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Some 160 villages in northern Syria were deserted by their residents in 2007 and 2008 because of climate change, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The report drawn up by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) warns of potential armed conflict for control of water resources in the Middle East.

"The 2007/8 drought caused significant hardship in rural areas of Syria. In the northeast of the country, a reported 160 villages have been entirely abandoned and the inhabitants have had to move to urban areas," it said.

In Syria and also in Jordan, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, "climate change threatens to reduce the availability of scarce water resources, increase food insecurity, hinder economic growth and lead to large-scale population movements," the report said.

"This could hold serious implications for peace in the region," the Canada-based institute said.

The study, financed by Denmark, predicts a hotter, drier and less predictable climate in the Middle East, "already considered the world's most water-scarce and where, in many places, demand for water already outstrips supply."

Oli Brown, who co-wrote the report with Alec Crawford, said: "Climate change itself poses real security concerns to the region. It could lead to increased militarisation of strategic natural resources, complicating peace agreements."

"Israel is already using climate change as an excuse to increase their control over the water resources in the region," he said.

In the study's conclusions, Brown and Crawford said: "As a region, the Levant produces a tiny fraction of global emissions -- less than one percent of the world total.

The exception among Levant countries is Israel, "whose emissions -- 11.8 metric tonnes per capita -- exceed the European average of 10.05 tonnes," they said.

"This may exacerbate the existing deep mistrust of the West, including Israel, which would be seen as causing a problem that it is unable or unwilling to resolve," they said.

The study also revealed the challenge posed by population growth.

"The combined population of the Levant will grow to 71 million by 2050 from 42 million in 2008" with major implications for water demand, food supply, housing and jobs, it said.

The IISD report said there is much that Middle Eastern governments and authorities, civil society and the international community can do to respond to climate change and the threats it may pose to regional peace and security.

"They can promote a culture of conservation in the region, help communities and countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and foster greater cooperation on their shared resources," it said.

The report says climate change could affect farm productivity in Syria, where agriculture represents 23 percent of gross domestic product and employs 30 percent of the economically active population.

"Some 13 percent of agricultural land was downgraded between 1980 and 2006 because of... urban expansion and agricultural, industrial and tourism activities," Fayez Asrafy, a desertification expert, told AFP.

"Rainfall shrank by 10 millimetres (a year) between 1956 and 2006 while temperatures rose by (an average) 0.5 degrees Celsius, though below the worldwide average of 0.6 degrees," Syrian meteorologist Khales Mawed said.

The IISD predicts even modest global warming would lead to a 30-percent drop in water in the Euphrates, which runs through Turkey, Syria and Iraq, while the Dead Sea would shrink in volume by 80 percent by the end of the century.