Conflict Prevention - 9th February 2010

Simon Hughes

I will end with a set of issues. As someone who takes a particular interest for my party in matters of energy and climate change, I am clear that the conflicts of the future are likely to be driven by competition and struggles for resources. Threats caused by the climate crisis are likely to increase rather than reduce the risk of conflict. People will struggle over water, for example, and that heightens the chance of conflict—recently, there was a fear in Bangladesh that its water supplies were likely to be cut off by a dam-building project by India upstream.

Last night, I was with our noble Friend Lord Ashdown who was speaking about the fear of conflict driven by shortages of food in some parts of the world. The reality is that energy, water, food and the other ravages of climate change are likely to be the drivers of conflict, particularly in the less-developed and poorer parts of the world.

At the end of the debate, it would be helpful to hear not only that the Minister understands those issues from the point of view of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but that the Government have a coherent strategy. For example, all the information that comes to the Minister’s colleagues in the Department of Energy and Climate Change about the risks to, and instability of, global energy supplies could be factored into Government policy, European Union policy and our activities in the United Nations.

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Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)

To give the situation context, and to show how difficult the task is, the comprehensive peace agreement, which is continually questioned and under threat, has not prevented the events in Darfur, which represent, in my view, the first climate change war. It was all to do with nomads coming in and trying to settle where the pastoralists were, and then, as always, the north went in with two boots and to some extent the south reacted. There is always the problem with the east, where there is the potential for conflict easily to spin off from events elsewhere in the country.

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Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)

I want to touch on a few key elements of conflict prevention as it affects foreign policy. They include the support given to other states, particularly to fragile states; the peace-building process and how it relates to preventing future conflict; the role of women in conflict prevention; and the future strategic threats that were mentioned by various Members, particularly climate change and access to resources.

Finally, I touch on the question of climate change—again, something mentioned by various Members. We need to look ahead to the likely drivers of future conflicts. They will include access to energy, to water and to land that can be used for crop production. The changes likely to happen to all aspects as a result of climate change make it a priority to consider them in connection with conflict prevention.

That puts the scale of the threat in stark terms. It should go hand in glove with the Government’s policies on assisting with adaptation to climate change and preventing further dangerous climate change through mitigation. I hope that the FCO is working closely with the Department of Energy and Climate Change on those issues; I know that climate change is another of the Department’s strategic priorities.

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Simon Hughes

I strongly associate myself with what the hon. Gentleman says. May I remind him of what the Queen said after the last Commonwealth conference about the relevance of the Commonwealth to the climate change agenda? Will he join me in making a request to Government—I have made it before and sometimes they have responded—to hold an annual debate on the Commonwealth in the main Chamber, which we have not had in the last year or so?

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