Climate Change and the Potential for Conflict in the Middle East: Emerging Threats to Security and Human Rights

ABSTRACT:The traditional notion of national security, primarily concerned with accumulating military power and technological prowess, is likely to lose its traction in the face of emerging security threats caused by water scarcity, food insecurity, rising temperatures, frequent floods, sandstorms, rising sea levels, and declining precipitation throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This essay's overarching question is: will climate change lead to more generalized violence rooted in structural inequities and unequal power relations, and hence human rights abuses? We argue that climate change has the potential to destabilize the region by creating the conditions for conflict given the deteriorating climatic conditions. The case for reconsidering how to tackle climate threats, while also integrating socio-economic and environmental approaches into climate governance, could not be more urgent. We argue that the traditional tools of promoting state security cannot withstand the widespread and cross-cutting challenges that climate change poses to the survival, livelihoods, and dignity of the people.