Climate Change: The Overlooked Crisis Amplifying Global Instability

The 2020s have been marked by a relentless succession of global crises each February, a pattern that has unfortunately relegated the slower-moving catastrophe of climate change down the international agenda. Unlike the significant attention garnered by Cop28 in Dubai in 2023, the current UN climate conference in Antalya, Turkey, is facing a muted global response. The ongoing pandemic, two major wars, two energy shocks, and the looming threat of advanced artificial intelligence have overshadowed the critical fight to maintain a habitable planet. In the United States, the recent midterm elections saw Democrats achieve a significant victory, largely attributed to voter dissatisfaction with high energy prices, inflation, the conflict with Iran, the proliferation of data centers, and the administration's stringent immigration policies. While artificial intelligence promises groundbreaking technological advancements, American voters expressed concerns about the substantial electricity and water demands of data centers, many of which are currently powered by natural gas. This concern was evident in the overwhelming defeat of 46 out of 47 ballot measures related to data centers across 10 states. Despite these pressing issues, climate change and green energy—once central campaign themes for figures like Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden—received notably little attention during the Democratic campaign. In the UK, the Green Party, a proponent of climate action, has seen a sharp decline in opinion polls since briefly holding second place in March. Conversely, Germany's far-right AfD Party, which performed strongly in September's regional elections, opposes key environmental policies, supports coal, and often dismisses climate change as inconsequential. This stance is a dangerous miscalculation. The Middle East is just recovering from an exceptionally hot summer, while Europe experienced a more alarming heatwave, with Sardinia recording a scorching 48.4°C and approximately 50,000 deaths reported in urban areas, alongside an estimated €180 billion in economic damages. Drought conditions disrupted river traffic on the Danube and Rhine, and contributed to devastating wildfires. The current El Nino, expected to peak in December, is further exacerbating global temperatures, pushing them beyond the background warming trend. The past three months have each seen global temperatures exceed the 1.5°C limit above pre-industrial levels agreed upon at Cop21 in Paris in 2015. Current government policies project a warming of 1.9°C to 3.7°C by 2100. Images depict the dramatic effects of drought, including a German warship wreck emerging from the Danube in Serbia, dried-out fields in Austria, wildfires in Spain, damaged sunflower fields in Italy, a closed water slide and drought-hit lake in Hungary, the dried-up Falmer Pond in England, burnt-out vehicles from a wildfire in France, the shrinking Po River in Italy, the parched Brenets Lake in Switzerland, Pfalzgrafenstein Castle surrounded by a dry Rhine River in Germany, wild horses seeking water in Bosnia and Herzegovina, people fleeing wildfires in Greece, burning trees and grassland in Sicily, and low water levels at the Ardingly Reservoir in the UK. The challenge of limiting temperature increases is compounded by the failure to even peak greenhouse gas emissions. Rapid and severe global warming could trigger irreversible collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets and the Amazon rainforest. The Middle East and North Africa anticipate more severe droughts, exacerbating existing water scarcity issues that strain relations between upstream and downstream states along major river systems like the Tigris and Euphrates (Turkey and Iraq) and the Blue Nile (Ethiopia and Egypt). Water mismanagement has previously contributed to instability in Syria and Yemen and continues to impact Iran. Conversely, saturated atmospheric conditions have led to damaging floods in Libya, Pakistan, and the UAE in recent years, and a glacier burst devastated Nepal in August. A more alarming prospect is the potential breakdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation as early as mid-century, which could result in significantly colder European winters, with temperatures in Scotland potentially dropping to -30°C and ice spreading into the North Sea, while summers would become hot and dry. The cascading effects would shift the Indian monsoon south of the subcontinent, devastating agricultural crops and leading to considerable political turbulence, including disrupted trade routes, mass migration, civil and international conflicts, breakdowns in food and energy supplies, and the spread of diseases. The crises of the 2020s would appear as minor precursors to such potential cataclysms, occurring in a world already weakened by diminished international cooperation, where superpowers and great powers exploit chaos for strategic advantage, and where the number of nuclear-armed states could increase beyond the current nine. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking in Istanbul before Cop31, characterized climate change as a universal threat comparable to war and pandemics, lamenting the erosion of international rules. The current crises divert resources, attention, and undermine the international cooperation essential for addressing climate change. With soaring prices for diesel and liquefied natural gas, it is understandable that incumbent politicians prioritize securing new hydrocarbon supplies over environmental conservation. Some may even wrongly attribute high energy prices to the pursuit of net-zero emissions rather than to geopolitical decisions. Conversely, green politicians and environmental advocates advocate for the cessation of oil and gas production and often oppose measures to expedite approvals for major projects, fearing they might favor fossil fuels over the necessary extensive infrastructure for a clean energy economy. This often leads to endless legal challenges, community protests, and burdensome bureaucratic processes for every wind or solar farm, electricity transmission line, or mine for critical minerals like lithium and rare earths. Such opposition overlooks the urgent needs for meeting energy demand, ensuring energy security, maintaining industrial competitiveness, and capitalizing on AI breakthroughs. However, a more effective approach exists. The economic and living standard impacts of the current wars would have been far more severe without prior progress in alternative energy sources. Renewables, electric vehicles, and efficiency improvements have mitigated the impact of the oil and gas leverage employed by Russia and Iran. The Gulf region is playing a pivotal role in this transition, achieving world-record low prices for solar power and developing the first large-scale, 24-hour solar and battery plant. Investments in green hydrogen production, green steel, carbon capture and storage, and natural hydrogen exploration are advancing crucial decarbonization technologies. Companies like Masdar and Acwa Power are extending the benefits of large-scale, low-cost renewables to regions in Africa and Central Asia that have been overlooked by Western green investors. Gulf nations are also accelerating ventures in critical minerals mining and processing, thereby diversifying supply chains beyond China. While the convergence of multiple crises can feel overwhelming, allowing climate change to proceed unchecked will inevitably exacerbate all of them. Strategic and decisive actions in nuclear power, renewables, electric vehicles, and other low-carbon sources can enhance energy security and affordability, which should be politically advantageous in any nation.