SIPRI Report: World stumbling into a new era of risk

World leaders are failing to prepare for a new era of complex and often unpredictable risks to peace as environmental and security crises converge, according to a recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The report, Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk, explores how different aspects of environmental crisis—including climate change, mass extinctions and resource scarcity—are interacting with a darkening security horizon, offering governments recommendations for action, and principles to guide them.

“Our new report for policymakers goes beyond simply showing that environmental change can increase risks to peace and security. That’s established,” said SIPRI Director and Environment of Peace author Dan Smith. “What our research reveals is the complexity and breadth of that relationship, the many forms it can take. And most of all, we show what can be done about it; how we can deliver peace and security in a new era of risk.”

Twin crises, complex risks Painting a vivid picture of the escalating security crisis, the report notes a doubling in the number of state-based armed conflicts (and conflict deaths) between 2010 and 2020, as well as a doubling in the number of forcibly displaced people to 82.4 million over the same period.

And it doesn’t look like states are uniformly invested in reversing this pattern, with the report’s authors noting an increase in 2020 in the number of operationally deployed nuclear warheads increased after years of reductions, and the surpassing in 2021 of $2 trillion in military spending for the first time ever.

On the environmental front, it notes species extinctions and resource over-utilisation. Climate change is making extreme weather events such as storms and heatwaves more common and more intense, reducing the yield of major food crops and increasing the risk of largescale harvest failures.

These crises are converging, with droughts and crop failures in various regions combining with other factors, such as poverty, weak government, resource competition, and corruption, to drive populations towards competition, conflict, irregular migration, and extremism.

Cooperation is the new realism Amid increasingly tense geopolitics, simmering interstate disputes, and the rise of populism, the report argues that cooperation is essential for managing the environmental and security crises, along with the risks they create.

“No government can secure the well-being of its citizens against the escalating global crises without international cooperation,’ stated former New Zealand PM and member of the Environment of Peace advisory panel Helen Clark.

“We must urgently find ways to cooperate on addressing common environment-related security threats, even in today’s toxic geopolitical landscape. Against global threats, cooperation is self-interest. In fact, cooperation is the new realism.”

Pandemic highlights need to expect the unexpected The Covid-19 pandemic, states the report, has highlighted the gains countries make by preparing for an event whose potential for devastation is clear even if its timing and nature may not be.

It cites the example of South Korea, which managed to keep its Covid-19 mortality rate down to around 10 percent of that of countries with comparable populations in the first two years of the pandemic, by applying lessons from the 2002 SARS outbreak. This approach not only saved lives but also allowed the country to avoid much of the destabilising economic and social impact felt in other countries that chose not to prepare.

“The pandemic shows us clearly the risks we run when we choose not to prepare,’ stated Margot Wallström, Environment of Peace advisory panel leader and former Swedish Foreign Minister and European Commissioner for the Environment.

“As the environmental and security crises get worse, governments need to assess what risks lie ahead, to develop the capacity to deal with them, and to make societies more resilient. The poorest countries will need

international support to do this, and they should receive it.”

Accordingly, the report recommends that environmental stressors be included in early-warning systems for conflict risk, and urges that treaties on sharing resources such as fisheries, water and forests should be updated to make them fit for purpose.

Only a just and peaceful transition will succeed To tackle climate change and the wider environmental crisis, the report urges governments around the world to bring about major transitions in areas such as energy and land use.

Keeping global warming to the Paris Agreement 1.5C target means reaching net zero carbon emissions globally within three decades. In the area of biodiversity, governments are discussing initiatives such as 30x30—protecting 30 percent of land and ocean area by 2030.

These transitions must succeed, insists the report, because of the immense security risks that would result from failure. Yet change at the scale and pace needed is unavoidably fraught with risk. The history of measures such as biofuels and hydropower dams shows that they can exacerbate insecurity, with hydropower alone having displaced an estimated 80 million people from their homes.

“We must learn from the mistakes of the past so we do not repeat them on a much larger scale,” said Geoff Dabelko, one of the report’s lead authors and a professor at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service.

“Conservation needs to happen, but it cannot be coercive. A rapid zero-carbon transition is essential but it must be done fairly. Tackling the environmental crisis must go hand-in-hand with justice, equity and rights, building peace rather than undermining it.”

Fund peace, not risk According to the report, governments spend an estimated $5–7 trillion per year on activities that can harm the natural environment, such as subsidising fossil fuels, destructive fishing and forest clearance.

“If governments want to secure peace in this new era of risk, they need to redirect their financing away from activities that undermine it,” said Environment of Peace expert panellist Arunabha Ghosh of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

“Funding conflict risk is in noone’s interest. But many governments continue to fund non-essential and ill-targeted fossil fuel development and other environmentally destructive activities, which neither serve the interests of sustainability nor protect vulnerable communities. We need a wholesale redirection of investment towards peace, environmental stability and resilience.”

To be effective, observes the report, solutions need to be inclusive, with sectors of society that are often marginalised (such as indigenous peoples, women and youth) included in decision-making processes and sharing the benefits.