CAIRO, February 28, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Britain believes that climate change and the shrinking water resources could trigger armed conflicts in the future and wants to ready its army for such a possibility, The Independent reported on Tuesday, February 28.

"Impacts such as flooding, melting permafrost and desertification could lead to loss of agricultural land, poisoning of water supplies and destruction of economic infrastructure," British Defense Secretary John Reid told the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs.

"Such changes make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely."

Reid underlined the need to prepare British forces for handling future conflicts over the dwindling water resources.

British military planners have already started considering the potential impact of global warming on Britain's armed forces over the next 20 to 30 years.

Instrumental

The threat of global warming is fast approaching mankind, scientists warn.

Reid said climate change has already been instrumental in the outbreak of armed conflicts in Africa.

"The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur.

"We should see this as a warning sign."

The minister estimated that more than 300 million people in Africa currently lack access to safe water, anticipating climate change to "worsen this dire situation."

Tensions have flared between Botswana, Namibia and Angola around the vast Okavango basin.

Ethiopia is pressing for a greater share of the Blue Nile's water but that would leave downstream Egypt as a loser.

Tony Juniper, the executive director of Friends of the Earth, was equally pessimistic.

"The science of global warming is becoming ever more certain about the scale of the problem we have, and now the implications of that for security and politics is beginning to emerge."

He said the problems could be most acute in the Middle East and North Africa.

Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan rely on the River Jordan but Israel controls it and has cut supplies during times of scarcity.

Palestinian consumption is severely restricted by Israel.

Hypocrisy

Charlie Kornick, head of the climate campaigning at the Greenpeace group, said climate change has been contributory to pressures on water supplies facing billions of people across Africa, Asia and South America.

"If politicians realize how serious the problems could be, why are British CO2 emissions still going up," he said.

Prime Minister Tony Blair is due to host a crisis Downing Street meeting later on Tuesday to address what he called "the major long-term threat facing our planet".

The meeting signals alarm within government at the political consequences of failing to deal with the specter of global warming.

A recent report by NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) warned that the melting away of the Arctic ice could lead to a series of dangerous global environmental changes.

Last year, scientists gave a detailed timetable of the destruction and distress that global warming is likely to cause to the world.

The scale of these impacts varies according to how quickly fossil fuel pollution is tackled, how fast the world’s population grows and how well countries can adapt to climate shift.

The world's increasing consumption of fossil fuels is basically blamed for the rising global changes.

The fossil fuels consumption was mostly due to the habits of the western world, particularly the US which is responsible for one quarter of carbon dioxide emissions.

An amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol commits member states to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases.

The protocol, which came into force on February 16, 2005, is ratified by a total of 141 countries. Notable exceptions include the US and Australia.

The agreement was almost destroyed in 2001 after it was abandoned by US President George W. Bush, who contended it was too costly for the oil-dependent US economy and unfair because it does not bind developing countries to emissions cuts.

Bush’s stance on the environment prompted Greenpeace group to label his administration as the worst performer on the history of environmental policy.