Climate change 'could mean war'
Updated on 05 April 2007
A new report warns that climate change could provoke border conflicts and social collapse.
Global warming is likely to determine where and why we go to war, with British troops dealing with the consequences of climate change.
Scientists from the IPCC - the group investigating the impact of global warming - are meeting in Brussels this week to finalise their report.
They are expected to warn of millions of climate refugees caused by drought, rising sea levels and crop failures, which could in turn provoke border conflicts and social collapse.
Channel 4 News has exclusively seen research commissioned by the MoD that pinpoints future climate hotspots.
Water is what it's all about.
Tomorrow's IPCC report will highlight how changes in rainfall - leading to floods or drought - will be the single most disruptive impact of climate change on the world's population.
The heavily irrigated Konya plain, on the high Anatolian plateau in central Turkey, is the country's breadbasket.
Climate change is forecast to cut average rainfall here by a third by the 2040s. Summer rainfall could be down by 80% by the end of the century.
The water in the Meke lake was 12 metres deep three years ago. There's now the very real possibility it could dry out completely this summer for the first time ever.
Desert conditions are predicted for the whole of the Mediterranean basin. And the Konya plain is where the scientists say the desert will start. Indeed, some say it already has.
The evidence for the drought is clear from the lakes that dot region. The Meke lake lies in the crater of an old volcano. The water here was 12 metres deep three years ago. There's now the very real possibility it could dry out completely this summer for the first time ever.
Locals called Meke lake the "eye of world" because of its shape. Now, they say, it's going blind.
Environmentalists here are pessimistic. They say the world is blind to the conflict that will follow when the water runs out.
Konya is now a bustling town. But the Met Office report for the MoD warns that crop yields around the Mediterranean will fall by a third due to drought, which will severely test governments' ability to feed their growing populations. Those populations will migrate from towns like Konya for the cities as failing agriculture drives people from their land.
And mass migrations could lead to social collapse and cross-border climate conflicts. There is a list of 60 countries at risk of conflict from climate change, including Turkey.
