Climate change could worsen social unrest and trigger conflicts, according to an international non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on peace building.

While human conflict can be caused by more than one factor, International Alert CEO Harriet Lamb said climate change is one of the “security issues” that exacerbates it.

“One of the factors that makes human conflict worse is climate change,” Lamb said during a recent discussion in Quezon City. She said erratic weather patterns threaten farmers’ livelihoods. The loss of food and viable sources of income could bring people or groups to clash over limited resources.

Lamb added that people who live in poverty find it harder to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence.

A study by International Alert commissioned by members of the G-7 titled A New Climate for Peace focused on how climate change threatens global security.

“Climate change is the ultimate ‘threat multiplier.’ It will aggravate already fragile situations and may contribute to social upheaval and even violent conflict,” the report read. The report noted that when climate change affects livelihoods that are dependent upon climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture, the risk of political instability increases.

From 2011 to 2013 International Alert Country Manager Francisco J. Lara Jr. said there has been an increase in violent incidents in Mindanao during the lean months, or what he described as the “hungriest period of the year.”

Based on the NGO’s Bangsamoro Conflict Monitoring System from 2011 to 2013, violent incidents increase from July to late August, coinciding with the agricultural lean season.

The report noted that the lean season is traditionally the period of “extreme deprivation” and hunger and a period when natural calamities often strike before the main season rice crop is harvested in the last quarter of the year.

“This verifies other studies that have highlighted the lean season and the variable climatic conditions during the same time as a critical period where violent attacks against persons and properties intensify,” the report read.

International Alert noted that farmers usually fight over irrigation systems.

The Department of Agriculture (DA), for its part, said there is a need to validate the data in the International Alert report.

“The study may only be considering the lean months for rice. However, it can be a good indicator to determine whether there’s a need to provide more interventions in the region,” said Dennis Arpia, officer in charge of the DA Agriculture and Fisheries Information Division.

Building resiliency

In December last year, world leaders inked a deal that aims to address the problem of climate change. Lamb said governments and the private sector must work together to put the agreement into action.

“The government and companies need to play their part in reducing carbon emission, to adapt to changes in the climate and to mitigate its bad effects,” she said.

“There’s a lot of work to be done. We need to build the resiliency of the community. It’s only going to get worse,” Lamb added.

Meanwhile, Energy Development Corp. (EDC) President and COO Richard Tantoco said reducing the country’s dependence on coal-fired power plants as the main source of electricity will help address concerns on climate change.

“We have a golden opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other countries whose over reliance on coal is now costing them trillions of dollars in externalities,” Tantoco said during the First Philippine Environment Summit.

Citing a study by the International Monetary Fund, Tantoco said the environmental and health costs not included in the price of fossil fuels like coal amounted to $5.3 trillion, or about $10 million per minute in 2015.

“I certainly hope that we do not have to learn the lessons from the mistakes that we will knowingly commit moving forward because to do so would make our future generations suffer the consequences of going the ‘fake cheap’ route,” he said.

“Rather, we should see this as an opportunity to take the time to take up cleaner and more efficient technologies that manage environmental, health and social impacts better,” Tantoco added.

Countries that have depended on coal plants as their main source of electricity have learned that such reliance can ultimately be very costly.

“On an ex-plant basis, coal may readily appear to be the cheaper option—especially with the recent crash in global coal prices—but what other countries may have saved in electricity prices by taking the fast and cheaper route, is quickly being eroded by the mounting social and environmental costs that they did not foresee or simply chose to ignore,” he said.

In terms of disasters, the Philippines and 19 other countries comprising the V20, or nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, face an average of around 50,000 climate change-related deaths per year.

The Philippines also stands to lose least 2.5 percent of GDP per year, equivalent to about P360 billion, or P150,000 per person, the EDC official said.

“The phenomenon that is climate change has never been territorial. It does not matter how much or how little carbon we emit today as a country relative to others,” he said.

“As a country with limited resources, our capacity to respond to emergencies, disasters and calamities has proven to be clearly inadequate. We cannot continue to live with this fact unaffected,” Tantoco added.

He said the Philippine government’s COP (UN Climate-Change Conference) 21 commitments, including that of undertaking GHG (CO2e) emissions reduction of about 70 percent by 2030, is a “critical step in the right direction.”

Tantoco called on all sectors to rally behind the government to honor and be accountable for such commitments.