The award of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) marks a watershed moment. It signals that people across the world and at all levels of society are recognizing that ongoing climate change is not only a long-term threat to the global environment, but also an immediate threat to peace and security.
As just one stark example, the violence and humanitarian disaster in Darfur, Sudan has deep roots in environmental degradation, declining rainfall, growing populations, and pervasive hunger and disease. Long-term climate change has probably played an important role in the long-term decline in precipitation experienced in Darfur in recent decades. While climate change alone does not trigger such disasters, climate change certainly adds to the stresses of impoverished and divided societies.
“I believe there are many places that are in, or on the edge of, conflict because of climate change already, and this prize is a warning that on our current trajectory of climate change the risk will get a lot worse — these will be the conflicts of the 21st century,” Earth Institute director Jeffrey Sachs told The New York Times shortly after the award. Of the ongoing war in the Darfur region of Sudan, Sachs added: “But for environmental stress, I doubt this would have exploded.”
We can, alas, expect similar adverse shocks as human-made climate change contributes to crop failures, droughts, floods, changing patterns of rainfall and snowmelt, more extreme tropical storms, rising sea levels, more damaging storm surges, shifting patterns of disease, and more. In these myriad ways, human-made climate change will add to the risks to peace around the world. We concur fully with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for its excellent choices and powerful warnings in this year’s Prize. Effective strategies of mitigation (reducing climate change) and adaptation (living effectively with climate change) will be needed to keep the peace and to reduce the adverse consequence of human-induced climate change.
The Earth Institute has been deeply and centrally involved for more than a decade with the global challenge of man-made climate change, and member institutions of the Earth Institute — including the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies — for longer than that. Among the 2,000-some scientists who contributed to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Round reports this year are dozens of Earth Institute scientists from diverse fields: oceanography, atmospherics, geophysics, remote sensing, hydrology, epidemiology. Many students have also been involved in preparing materials for the IPCC.
In addition, the Earth Institute is proud to have hosted Al Gore for a wonderful discussion last spring and to be working with Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, head of IPCC, in several ways. Dr Pachauri is a member of the Earth Institute’s Commission on Education for International Development Professionals, which is co-chaired by John McArthur and Jeffrey Sachs, and serves as the Commission’s regional coordinator for South Asia and lead expert on climate science. Dr. Pachauri also serves on the board of the Earth Institute’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society. Dr. Pauchari and Dr. Sachs are also co-chairs of the Indian Commission on Sustainable Development.
Below is a partial list of Earth Institute scientists and others at Columbia who have contributed to the current IPCC report, or to the work of the IPCC in the recent past:
Mark Chandler, Center for Climate Systems Research
David Major, Center for Climate Systems Research
Peter Neofotis, Center for Climate Systems Research
Robert Chen, Center for International Earth Science Information Network
Xiaoshi Xing, Center for International Earth Science Information Network
Joyce Klein Rosenthal, Center for Sustainable Urban Development
Beate Liepert, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Edward Cook, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Rosanne D’Arrigo, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Sidney Hemming, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Kevin Vranes, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Christopher Small, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Cynthia Rosenzweig, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Gavin Schmidt, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
David Rind, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Ben Chao, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
James Hansen, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Gary Russell, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
George Tselioudis, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Vivien Gornitz, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Anthony Del Genio, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Andrew Lacis, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Ron Miller, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Francesco Tubiello, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Vivien Gornitz, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Drew Shindell, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Marta Vicarelli, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Patrick Kinney, Mailman School of Public Health
Kim Knowlton, Mailman School of Public Health
Madeleine Thomson, International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Walter Baethgen, International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Lisa Goddard, International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Upmanu Lall, International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Arthur Greene, International Research Institute for Climate and Society
Neil Ward, International Research Institute for Climate and Society
David Nissen, School of International and Public Affairs