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This chapter outlines some of the links between human security and climate change in the Pacific Islands. It demonstrates that climate change poses significant risks to human security in the region. The links between climate change, human security, and instability and conflict are also explored. It seems unlikely that climate change will be the principal cause of violent conflict in the region in the future, but it may increase the risk of violent conflict in some places. The chapter argues that in order to increase human security in the region and avoid possible conflict and instability, climate-change adaptation strategies must be implemented.

This report presents the initial action undertaken by UNEP immediately following the cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip in January 2009, and summarizes the scientific findings of the complex assessment process carried out by UNEP during the spring and early summer of 2009. Recommendations are provided for the remediation of environmental damage caused by the recent escalation of hostilities, as well as for longer-term improvement of the environment in the Gaza Strip.

A thin veneer of atmosphere, soil, and water covers the surface of the planet. That is the envelope supplying most of the raw material we need to live. Energy from the Sun, with some residual energy still within the planet’s core, feeds Earth’s dynamic systems that cycle materials within the envelope. Earth System scientists are investigating the energy and material fluxes that determine the systems’ dynamics to better understand climate change. This Compendium presents some of the vanguard science and conceptual advances under discussion and published by researchers since 2007 that explores the challenge presented by climate change. Rapidly developing tools—that allow fast and accurate readings of environmental conditions, that compile and analyze data series of increasing complexities at unprecedented rates, and that allow insights into fluxes of energy and material at micro and macro scales—have accelerated the rate at which vanguard science is being produced.

Scientists state unequivocally that the earth is warming. Climate change is happening, it is caused in large part by human activity, and it will have many serious and potentially damaging effects in the decades ahead. Greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants, and other human activities—rather than natural variations in climate—are the primary cause of contemporary global warming. Due largely to the combustion of fossil fuels, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas, are at a level unequaled for at least 800,000 years. The greenhouse gases from human activities are trapping more of the sun’s heat in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in warming. Over the last century, average global temperatures rose by more than 1°F and some regions warmed by as much as 4°F. The oceans have also warmed, especially in the upper layers.

Development efforts are increasingly at risk. A faltering global economy, food and energy insecurity, conflict, global climate change, declining ecosystems, extreme poverty, and the threat of epidemics seriously challenge progress towards improving social welfare and economic growth in many developing countries. In 2008, the deaths of approximately 140,000 people in the Myanmar cyclone and the collapse of more than five million buildings and damage to 21 million more in the China earthquake, were stark reminders that disaster risks associated with tropical cyclones, floods, earthquakes, droughts and other natural hazards are a key part of this interlocked set of threats. The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction focuses attention on that challenge. It identifies disaster risk, analyses its causes, shows that these causes can be addressed and recommends the means to do so. The over-riding message of the Report is that reducing disaster risk can also help in reducing poverty, safeguarding development and adapting to climate change, with beneficial effects on broader global security, stability and sustainability. Given the urgency posed by climate change, the Report forcefully argues the case for taking action now.

Throughout its history, Earth’s climate has varied, reflecting the complex interactions and dependencies of the solar, oceanic, terrestrial, atmospheric, and living components that make up planet Earth’s systems. For at least the last million years, our world has experienced cycles of warming and cooling that take approximately 100,000 years to complete. Over the course of each cycle, global average temperatures have fallen and then risen again by about 9°F (5°C), each time taking Earth into an ice age and then warming it again. This cycle is believed associated with regular changes in Earth’s orbit that alter the intensity of solar energy the planet receives. Earth’s climate has also been influenced on very long timescales by changes in ocean circulation that result from plate tectonic movements. Earth’s climate has changed abruptly at times, sometimes as a result of slower natural processes such as shifts in ocean circulation, sometimes due to sudden events such as massive volcanic eruptions. Species and ecosystems have either adapted to these past climate variations or perished.