(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-22 16:21

HALF THE WORLD AT RISK

Although the study cited only periods of temperature decline to social disruptions, the researchers said the same prediction could be made of global warming.

A report last week said climate change will put half the world's countries at risk of conflict or serious political instability.

International Alert, a London-based conflict resolution group, identified 46 countries -- home to 2.7 billion people -- where it said the effects of climate change would create a high risk of violent conflict. It identified another 56 states where there was a risk of political instability.

"I would expect to see some pretty serious conflicts that are clearly linked to climate change on the international scene by 2020," International Alert secretary general Dan Smith told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Near the top of the list are west and central Africa, with clashes already reported in northern Ghana between herders and farmers as agricultural patterns change.

Bangladesh could also see dangerous changes, while the visible decline in levels of the River Ganges in India, on which 400 million people depend, could spark new tensions there.

Water shortages would make solving tensions in the already volatile Middle East even harder, Smith said, while currently peaceful Latin American states could be destabilised by unrest following changes in the melting of glaciers affecting rivers.

Unless communities and governments begin discussing the issues in advance, he said, there is a risk climate shift could be the spark that relights wars such as those in Liberia and Sierra Leone in west Africa or the Caucasus on Russia's borders. Current economic growth in developing states could also be hit.

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