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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

GLOBAL SECURITY CHALLENGES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 

IN AFRICA: AN ANALYSIS OF CLIMATE-CHANGE-AS-A- NEW 

SECURITY-THREAT PARADIGM. 

 
Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie, 

Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka 

E-mail:aloysuis.okolie@unn.edu.ng 

  

Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince 

Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka 

E-mail: talk2prince2001@yahoo.com; prince.ohiaegbu@unn.edu.ng 

 

Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. PhD 

groupsonpaul@yahoo.com 

Federal University Ndufu Alike Ikwo (FUNAI), 

Abakaliki – Ebonyi State, Nigeria 

 

Abstract 

This paper looks specifically on the linkage between climate change and sustainable development 

vis-à-vis Africa’s security in the 21st century. Drawing from the security rethinking studies, and 

environmental literature, we argue that the most important but often disregarded, and 

undertheorized analytics domain in the contour of Africa’s security and geostrategic 

considerations is the nexus between weak sustainable economic development model and 

existential threat that do not lend themselves to military response. The central thesis is that the 

greatest threat to environmental security emanates not from poverty, but from the process of 

wealth creation, hence the impossibility of an environmentally sustainable capitalist economic 

development in a non-dematerializing global economy. The paper concludes by nothing that the 

extant international adaptation measures to climate change, not only reduces Africa’s adaptive 

capacity but also predisposes it to the cascading cataclysmic consequences of the developed 

countries’ ecological footprint. Finally, against the background that climate change is bound up 

with other social and economic issues facing developing nations that are fundamentally related 

to inequality and injustice, the paper recommends the principle of ‘common but differentiated 

responsibilities’ in the climate-change-as-a-security-threat global mitigative measures, if global 

environmental security must be concretized into action. 

 

Keywords:  Africa, Sustainable development, nuclearisation, climate change, new threat 

paradigm; human insecurity, ecological footprint, Human security. 

 

Introduction/Problematique 

In an increasingly interconnected 

system, there is neither invulnerability 

nor developmental irreversibility; rather, 

the weakness of the periphery increases 

the exposure of the centre, making the 

entire configuration, including the 

centre, more unstable, the seemingly 

secure societies of the world started 

realizing that they too were vulnerable to 

events in the less secure and hence 

underdeveloped regions of the globe;, 

 

mailto:talk2prince2001@yahoo.com
mailto:prince.ohiaegbu@unn.edu.ng
mailto:groupsonpaul@yahoo.com


 

 

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interconnectedness means that 

dysfunctions in the weaker components 

of the global fabric result in 

reciprocating. Given the retro feeding 

nature of these trends, no region of the 

world can be immune to impending 

crises of potentially catastrophic 

proportions (Head, 1991:5). 

 

In the aftermath of the Cold War, an 

intellectual firestorm was created around 

the emergent securitization framework 

between the “pronuclear” school and the 

“antinuclear” school in Africa. At the 

end of the securitization debate , 

‘nuclearization’ was presented as the 

footnote of Africa’s security policy 

framework by the “nuclear theologians” 

(Mazrui,1967;Weidenfield and 

Nicolson,(1964); Subramanian ,(1982); 

Adisa, (1981); Aluko (1981); 

Subramanian (1982); Ibikunle, (1976); 

Marwah and Schulz,1975); Nweke, 

(1980;1985,and 2000).By implication, 

national security was defined as the 

acquisition of nuclear capability, and 

political independence, considered 

meaningless if Africa cannot acquire it. 

 

However, in the emergent shift in 

security construct which now stands in 

direct opposition to the earlier traditional 

realist state-centric conceptualization of 

security, one can at least in theory 

distinguish between ‘defense policy’, 

which focuses exclusively on the 

military dimension, and ‘security 

policy’, which takes a broader view and 

incorporate other security domains. In 

the new international peace and security 

agenda, the prospect of uncertainty and 

the dynamic nature of change, and 

unanticipated disaster are now taken into 

consideration in security threat 

projection. And the systemic 

relationship between climate change and 

security in terms of both its functions 

and dysfunctions have become a subject 

of growing public debate and academic 

inquiry leading to the outpouring of 

scholarly literature (Garcia, 2008; 

Maybee, 2008; Kuwali, 2008; Podesta 

and Ogden, 2007; Barnett, 2003; 

Stripple, 2002). Such systemic or 

ecological interactions and security do 

not respect the boundaries and political 

jurisdiction of nation-states. This is what 

makes the environment-security nexus 

an aspect of states’ external sovereignty 

(as that concept refers to relations 

among states), and at the same time an 

aspect of internal sovereignty (as it 

refers to a regulatory function of public 

policy (Reinicke, 1998). 

 

Put differently, the interdependence 

between states, environmental issues, 

and national security cut across the 

domestic-international public policies at 

any level from the local to the global. 

Upon this recognition, the impact of 

climate change on peace and security 

was top on the agenda of the United 

Nations Security Council debate held on 

April 17, 2007 (UN Department of 

Public Information, 2007). Given direct 

and indirect negative spillovers of 

environmental problems, a new threat 

that undermine human sustenance, 

human livelihood, safety, and survival 

has led to the climate-change-as-a-

security-threat nexus analytics of 



 

 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

securitization. Thus, the international 

community has noted that climate 

change as environmental problem is a 

serious threat to national and 

international security, and that it would 

be counterproductive to treat climate 

security concerns solely or even 

primarily with the traditional tools of 

national defense; which may not be best 

suited for the purposes of reducing the 

vulnerability of countries to natural 

hazards made worse by climate change.  

 

In other words, climate change is no 

longer about environment, it is 

increasingly about 

development.Evidently, the intersection 

between Africa’s incorporation with the 

global capitalist economy, its 

“ecological footprint” and “ecological 

debt” (an neutral index of the ecological 

(un)sustainability of man’s activities on 

the environment), implies that Africa is 

susceptible to the “hot spots” of the 

emerging non-military human security 

threats even under the Environmentally 

Sustainable Development (ESD) model 

as being  practiced. This is because, 

economic growth relies upon 

exploitation of natural and social capital, 

on the one hand, and climate change 

results from human activity, rather than 

pure forces of nature.  

 

Despite this hindsight, a critical reading 

of past  efforts at addressing “ecological 

debt” such as  the "Limits to Growth" 

debate of the 70's championed by the 

"Club of Rome", the Brandt 

Commission's, the Palme’s 

Commission; the Brundtland’s 

Commission (chaired by Mrs. Cro 

Harlem Brundtland, the then Prime 

Minister of Norway), Rio Summit of 

1992 (the United Nations Conference on 

the Environment and Development) 

Multilateral Environmental Agreements 

(MEAs),the Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change (IPCC), and Koyoto are 

at best the merger of environment and 

economics in decision making  

masquerading as multilateral mitigation 

and adaptive measures. As a result, 

human actions have continued to 

influence the climate, human induced 

climate change (IPCC, 2005), because 

the global economy, and consumption 

are still based on the weak model of 

sustainability that allows the total 

depletion of exhaustible resources as 

long as the derivative (FOREX) revenue 

is invested in tangible and intangible 

assets. The implication of this according 

to Ohiaegbu is “the destruction of 

natural resources of today on tomorrow 

which leads to an "unsustainable 

situation" which developing nations 

have been subjected to, in satisfying 

international demands by depleting its 

share of nature’s resources, its natural 

capital” (Ohiaegbu, 2006:106). 

 

For many reasons, the security problems 

facing contemporary Africa deserve 

more rigorous and comprehensive 

attention. First, Africa has become a 

major flashpoint of livelihood and other 

aspects of human security which interact 

with geo-strategic (or “hard”) security 

issues (Smith and Vivekanada, 2007; 

Ki- Moon cited in the Washington Post, 

Editorial, and 16 June 2007:15). For 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_capital
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_capital


 

 

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instance, West Africa has accounted for 

15 percent of cumulative disaster events 

in Africa between 1975 and 2002, which 

rose by 94 percent from the 1970s to the 

1990s, or 154 disasters during the first 

five years of this decade, compared to 

136 during the past two decades. 

This paper takes its departure from the 

point that Africa’s securitization 

framework is myopic because it has not 

‘captured the need to reach out in 

defence of people as well as the state’ 

(Oberleitner, 2005: 190-191). Thus, 

what constitutes an ‘existential threat’ in 

a world of "every state for itself'' 

(Cooper, 2002:16) has not been 

determined in the contour of Africa’s 

security and geostrategic considerations. 

Whereas the emergent shift in security 

construct now stands in direct opposition 

to the earlier state-centric 

conceptualization security, Africa’s 

“new security threat paradigm’’, 

however, has all the birth marks and 

finger prints of US Global War on 

Terrorism (GWOT), a timeless, 

borderless geopolitical strategy whose 

presumptions is that all conflicts, 

insurrections and civil wars is terrorist 

threats, regardless of the facts on the 

ground. This  explains the presence of  

such security coalitions, and institutions  

like the Gulf of Guinea Guard,(GGG); 

the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism 

Initiative (TSCTI); the Gulf of Guinea 

Energy Security Strategy 

(GGESS);Combined Joint Task Force-

Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), African 

Conflict Prevention Pool (ACPP), a unit 

created by the U.S. Central Command 

(CENTCOM); the Special Operations 

Command Europe (SOCEUR) of the 

U.S. European Command 

(EUCOM);the Terrorist Interdiction 

Program (TIP) ,and the Pan-Sahel 

Initiative (PSI),among others 

(Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of 

Africa Fact Sheet 2006, 

http://www.hoa.centcom.mil/)  in 

African continent. 

 

As the national security community have 

begun to characterize climate change as 

"the ‘coming anarchy’, a shift in focus to 

human security would therefore require  

securitization that is quite different from 

those that focus almost exclusively on 

the security of the state, regime or 

military security (Willet ,2004: 

114).There is no longer considerable 

ambiguity and confusion about what 

kind of security system” is most 

appropriate for Africa (Ajulu, 2004: 

272-273), a more desirable type of 

security for Africa is the one that dwell 

more on human security. For Africa, 

human security means is the welfare of 

the individual, and by extension, the 

community, as against threats to regimes 

and the territoriality of nation states, 

earlier emphasized by the traditional 

realist state-centric conceptualization of 

security.  

 

This article proceeds as follows. The 

first part presents the changing discourse 

on security showing how the concept has 

expanded, why it did, and the need for 

rethinking the traditional realist 

paradigm of national security. The 

second part discusses the debate 

between developing nations, and the 



 

 

205 | P a g e  

 

 

Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

developed nation over who was 

responsible for ecological footprint and 

ecological debts and who should pay for 

the adaptation to the impacts of climate 

change. The third part highlighted 

Africa’s susceptibility to the “hot spots” 

of the emerging non-military human 

security threats. Let us begin by 

appreciating the changing discourse on 

security. 

 

Changing Discourse on Security: 

Transition from Nuclear Security to 

Human and Environmental Security  

The issue of survival remains the base 

value of global politics, indeed, of all 

human agencies. One common feature 

of a traditional realist 

paradigm/approach to ‘security’ is that, 

the state is made the ontological referent 

object of security. Under the realist 

traditional security framework 

supported by the doctrine of raison 

d’état, and the ‘leviathan’, state's 

security in the final analysis is only 

definable in terms of sovereignty and 

territorial integrity. Thus, security being 

the primordial consideration of states 

often equated with their existence, state 

security was defined as  ‘national 

security’ as opposed to the security of 

individuals, groups of one sort or 

another, civil society, world society or 

common humanity (see. Buzan, 1994, 

Lippman, 1991; Meinecke, 1984). Such 

a vision of security predisposed “states 

to priorities their own national security 

interests over and above the interests of 

individuals who live both within their 

own territories, and within other states 

(Klare, 2001). With such a ‘corporate-

security state’ framework, the 

government’s imperative is to provide 

security for its corporate interests in 

order to fulfill its national interests. 

  

However, such conception of security 

was never without its critics. The 

parsimoniousness of the traditional 

approach by paying disproportionate 

attention to the military dimension of 

security, not only made analysts to 

ignore other issues which were of equal 

importance and also blinded analysts to 

the inter-relationship between different 

threats to the different sectors: economic 

well-being, environment-related issues, 

social stability, etc (Buzan,1998).In the 

wake of the end of the Cold War, the 

narrowly militarised of a traditional 

realist paradigm understanding of 

‘security’ started becoming 

anachronistic as a new framework of 

securitization known as  ‘human 

security’  emerged  that cover virtually 

all the measures that threaten human 

survival, and dignity (Government of 

Canada,1999); Hampson,2000).Thus, 

following the changing menus and 

priorities of world politics, the subject 

matter of security has undergone both a 

“broadening” and a “deepening” as well 

as a revisioning . As could be seen from 

the contours of the debate on security 

rethinking in security studies (see Figure 

1), the subject and the object of human 

security is now socially or 

environmentally constituted (see Cell 2: 

and Cell 4: in Fig 1). Therefore, it is not 

only issues that pertain to military 

security (Cell 1: and Cell 3) that impinge 

upon individual’s security.  



 

 

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The emergent shift in security construct 

now stands in direct opposition to the 

earlier traditional realist state-centric 

conceptualization. As a result, at least in 

theory one can talk of a transition from 

nuclear security to human security or, 

the security of person. For example, in 

the case of Britain, one can now 

distinguishes between ‘defence policy’, 

which focuses exclusively on the 

military dimension, and ‘security 

policy’, which takes a broader view 

incorporating economic and trade issues.  

 

Fig. 1: A Matrix of Security Studies 

What is the Source of Security Threat? 

Military,  Non-military,            or both?     

CelL:1 National Security 

(Conventional Realist approach to 

Security Studies) 

Cell2: Redefined Security e.g., 

Environment and economic 

security) 

 Cell 3 Intra-state security, e.g., 

civil war ethnic conflict, and 

democide) 

 Cell 4: Human security, e.g., 

environment and economic threats 

to the survival of  societies, groups, 

and individuals)  

 

As a result, the idea of human security is 

now seen in terms of fivefold 

interwoven interaction between 

subsystems linked by specific bridges: 

environment and economy linked by 

resources; economy and society by 

social forces; society and polity by 

brokers and alliances; and politics and 

culture by ideology (just as in the 

relationships between the Earth, a 

unified complex: interacting whole of 

air, water, land, and living organisms) 

(Nef, 1985). 

 

The UN Development Programme 1994 

Report and the creation of the 

Commission on Human Security which 

published its report on Human Security 

Now, in 2003, presents a more complex, 

varied, and nuanced visions of human 

security, as the security of the 

individual; safeguarding and expanding 

people’s vital freedoms, shielding 

people from acute threats and 

empowering people to take charge of 

their own lives’ (Commission on Human 

Security, 2003:iv).Such an ontology of 

security is in contrast to the traditional 

realist approach to ‘security’ in which 

the security of the regime in power was 

made the ontological referent object of 

security.  

 

Upon the realization that mankind was 

living in a world of mutual vulnerability 

(Head, 1991), and ecological 

interactions do not respect the 

boundaries and political jurisdiction of 

nation-states, the impact of climate 

change on peace and security was top on 

the agenda of the United Nations 

Security Council held debate on April 

17, 2007 (UN Department of Public 

Information, 2007). Environmental 



 

 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

security is an aspect of states’ external 

sovereignty (as that concept refers to 

relations among states), and at the same 

time an aspect of internal sovereignty (as 

it refers to a regulatory function of 

public policy (Reinicke, 1998). This is 

because the interdependence between 

states, environmental issues, and 

national security cut across the 

domestic-international public policies at 

any level from the local to the global. 

Yet, climate change does not affect 

people equally; the related disasters and 

impacts often intensify existing 

inequalities, vulnerabilities, economic 

poverty and unequal power relations 

(Brody et al., 2008; IPCC, 2007). 

 

Cost of Climate Change 

The stalemate between the developing, 

and developed nations in the climate 

change negotiations bound up 

fundamentally with inequality and 

injustice, can be resolved by the 

application of the Rio principles when it 

states that a ‘state has sovereign right to 

exploit its own resources in accordance 

with its own policies, without harming 

the environment elsewhere (principle 2); 

environmental protection is an integral 

part of development (principle 4); and 

the polluter pays principles, including 

the internalization of costs and the use of 

economic instruments (principle 16) 

(Haas, and Levy, 1992:12).Related to 

this , is the principle of ‘common but 

differentiated responsibilities’ which 

has become a key principle for the 

developing nations in the climate change 

negotiations.  

The position of most developing 

countries of differentiated (Baumert, et 

al.,1999) responsibilities which implies 

that they should not be required to take 

any substantial commitments of their 

own in combating climate change 

(Harris, 2003: 27), is underscored by the 

historical responsibility of developed 

countries for climate change. Thus, a 

‘common but differentiated 

responsibilities’ as stressed by the 

developed countries lays the principle of 

fair burden-sharing according to 

responsibility in the light of international 

justice, and is only a restatement of the 

‘the polluter pays principles’ and the use 

of economic instruments (principle 16) 

in retrospect. This is justified realizing 

that developing countries are more 

exposed to climate hazards and less 

resilient, would be hit hardest by the 

economic and social impacts of climate 

change. They are projected to bear some 

75–80 percent of the costs of damages 

induced by climate change (UNFCCC, 

2007a). Warming of 2°C could 

permanently reduce annual income per 

capita an estimated 4–5 percent in Africa 

and South Asia. The estimated losses for 

high-income countries are smaller, 

dropping the global annual average loss 

in income per capita to about 1 percent 

(World Bank 2010c). 

 

Africa represents only a small fraction, 

2.5%, out of the total carbon dioxide 

(CO2) emissions per year, yet 14% of 

the population of the world lives here. 

The emissions per inhabitant in Libya, 

the Seychelles and South Africa are on 

the level of the lowest among OECD 



 

 

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countries with the other African 

countries trailing lower behind them. 

 

Fig.2:  Industrialized countries emit most anthropogenic CO2 

(Area proportional to historical CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion, 1900-

1999) 

 
 

Regionally, emissions (both per capita 

and in total) are at their highest in United 

states (30.0%); Europe (27.7%); former 

Soviet Union (13.7%), and China, India, 

and developing Asia (12.2), or 83.6% 

taken together. In other words, most of 

the "greenhouse gases" (GHGs) of 

which the most important are carbon 

dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O,) and 

methane (CH4) working as a 

‘greenhouse’ surrounding the earth were 

discharged by developed countries over 

the past few centuries. Developed 

countries remain the largest per capita 

users of both total energy and industrial 

energy. A fact that must be remembered 

is that Western countries and 

industrialized Asian nations like Japan 

and the Republic of Korea have moved 

many of their factories to developing 

countries such as China and India, where 

cheap labour allows them to 

manufacture at lower costs than at home. 

This globalization of production has 

resulted in the scenario in fig 3, the 

discharge of much more waste in poor 

nations that otherwise would have been 

released in developed countries.  

 

 

 

 

  



 

 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

Fig.3: The Challenges of global warming and climate change 

 

 
 

Over the years, industrial development 

has overexploited natural resources, 

polluted the air and water, altered the 

climate and resulted in enormous 

accumulations of waste from industrial 

facilities and from products discarded at 

the end of their life or displaced by 

newer models. The United National 

Industrial Development Organization’s 

Industrial Development Report (2011) 

noted that Industrial development has 

brought unprecedented improvements in 

standards of living– but at an 

environmental cost. It noted further that 

pollution, resource depletion and the 

waste of discarded products, each at an 

all-time high– are major causes of 

environmental degradation and climate 

change. Policy-makers must address 

them as they remap development paths 

(UNIDO, 2011)     

 

One way of considering equity in terms of 

burden-sharing is by looking multilateral 

funding of adaptation efforts. Arguably, 

not all funds pledged by developed 

countries have yet been made available, 

and some developing countries cite 

difficulties in accessing what funds are 

available. By one recent accounting, 

bilateral programmes have committed 

$110 million to more than 50 adaptation 

projects in 29 countries (Frankel-Reed, 

2006). The World Bank reported in 2006 

that provided approximately $170 million 

“on the order of approximately $50 

million over about five years,” mainly 

through the Gifted World Bank GEF 

(2006) for the preparation of national 

communications, which address both 

mitigation and adaptation its support for 

adaptation had been. Given the nature, 

and rate of funding, it becomes uncertain 

how the World Bank could generate from 

“a few tens of millions” to $1 billion for 

adaptation purposes by 2012.This is in 

spite of the fact that there has been six 

more Intergovernmental Negotiating 

Committee (INC) meetings from Rio to 

Kyoto (1992-1997).  

 

209 



 

 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

For the developing world, equity is about 

getting a fair share of the global common, 

and burden-sharing according to 

responsibility in the light of international 

justice, “cannot be avoided if the deep 

North-South divide that has characterized 

cooperation in the global economy were 

to be bridged. In fact, the US and 

Australia threaten to drop their insistence 

if developing countries were not to get 

involved in new commitments. Contrary 

to what was promised in the Berlin 

Mandate, some developed countries and 

the US in particular continued to push for 

commitments for developing countries. 

For instance, the third stage (1997- ), the 

post-Kyoto agenda was a matter of how to 

make the agreement acceptable for certain 

developed countries and thereby secure 

their ratification (Najam et 

al.,2003:222).Thus, in the absence of 

commitment to mitigation, defined as any 

anthropogenic interventions that can 

either reduce the sources of greenhouse 

gas (GHG) emissions (abatement) or 

enhance their sinks (sequestration),and  

the promotion of a national-level analysis 

of the various technologies and practices 

that have the capacity to mitigate climate 

change (mitigation assessment ) by the 

international community, Africa keeps 

paying the Ecological Debts of the 

developed countries’ ecological  

footprint. 

 

Are human security issues in Africa’s 

security and developmental equation, 

distinct from or similar to the existing 

ones on regime and/or territorial 

security? 

Africa’s Ecocatastrophes:  The 

Burden of Global Ecological 

Footprints of Weak Sustainability. 

 

Possible climate change/security 

interactions over time 

Since Africa is vulnerable the more to 

livelihood security and other aspects of 

human security which interact with geo-

strategic (“hard”) security issues (DFID, 

December 8, 2005). There is a complex 

matrix of possible climate 

change/security which interacts with the 

environment, adding further stresses to 

Africa’s deteriorating situation. The 

International Centre for Trade and 

Sustainable Development (ICTSD) 

provides possible impacts on rural 

livelihoods and food security, which is 

further compounded by matrix of 

possible climate change/security 

interactions over time (Figure 4) 

 

Fig 4: Number of undernourished, incorporating climate change effects (in millions 

 

 1990  2020  2050  2080  2080/1990 Ratio   

Developing 

countries  

885  772  579  554  0.6   

Asia, Developing  659  390  123  73  0.1   

210 



 

 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

Sub-Saharan 

Developing  

138  273  359  410  3.0   

Latin Amercia  54  53  40  23  0.4   

Middle East & 

North Africa  

33  55  56  48  1.5   

 

Source, Joachim von Braun, IFPRI. Impact of Climate Change on Food Security in 

Times of High Energy Prices, Background Paper prepared for the International Centre 

for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) 

 

Figure 5 below depicts the matrix of 

possible climate change/security 

interactions over time. In the short term 

(2007-2020); medium term (2021-2050) 

and long term (2051-2100) direct impact 

of global weather catastrophes will 

involve local conflict over water, and 

some international conflict over water. 

Many countries on the African continent 

are prone to recurrent droughts; some 

drought episodes, particularly in south-

east Africa, which are associated with El 

Ninos, or ENSO (El Nino -- Southern 

Oscillation) events in IPCC jargon. 

 

Figure 5:  Matrix of Possible Climate Change/Security Interactions over Time 

 
 Direct 

impact 

Indirect Consequences Slow-

onset 

 Water Food Health Mega-

projects 

Disasters Bio-fuel Sea 

level 

Short 

term 

(2007

-

2020) 

Local 

conflict 

over 

water 

Failure to 

meet MDGs 

Failure to 

meet MDGs 

Long history 

of  

development-

induced 

displacement 

from 1950s 

Nation 

states begin 

to lose 

credibility 

due to 

inability to 

prevent 

large 

disasters 

Isolated 

food - fuel 

competition 

& price 

spikes 

Small 

number 

of 

displac

ements 

Medi

um 

term 

(2021

-

2050) 

Increas

ed local 

& some 

internat

ional 

conflict 

over 

water 

Significant 

displacement 

due to 

famine 

Interacts 

with food 

production 

problems 

Displacement 

of rural poor 

due to CDM 

& large scale 

dams & other 

state based 

mitigation & 

adaptation  

projects 

Significant 

political 

unrest due 

to failure of 

DRR & 

inadequate 

recovery in 

many 

countries 

Food-fuel 

competition 

increases & 

biodiversity 

erosion 

Increas

ing 

displac

ement 

& 

nationa

l/ 

internat

ional 

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An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

tension 

Long 

term 

(2051

-

2100) 

Major 

internat

ional 

conflict 

over 

water 

Major 

displacement 

& political 

upheaval 

Major 

displacement 

due to 

epidemics 

Major urban 

upheaval and 

other 

political fall 

out from 

mega-project 

displacement 

Major 

upheaval 

with 

international 

implications 

due to 

unattended 

weather 

catastrophes 

Major 

discontent 

due to 

food-fuel 

competition 

Major 

internat

ional 

tension

s due 

to 

populat

ion 

displac

ement 

 

In the short term (2007-2020), indirect 

consequences of global weather 

catastrophes were attributed to the 

failure to meet MDGs. Concerning the 

MDGs individually, UNDP (2007) 

states: 

…Climate change may pose a threat to 

food security through erratic rainfall 

patterns and decreasing crop yields, 

contributing to increased hunger. 

Furthermore, adverse climate change 

impacts on natural systems and 

resources, infrastructure, and labor 

productivity may lead to reduced 

economic growth, exacerbating 

poverty. These effects threaten the 

achievement of MDG 1. Loss of 

livelihood assets, displacement and 

migration may lead to reduced access to 

education opportunities, thus 

hampering the realization of MDG 2. 

Depletion of natural resources and 

decreasing agricultural productivity 

may place additional burdens on 

women’s’ health and reduce time for 

decision-making processes and 

income-generating activities, 

worsening gender equality and 

women’s’ empowerment (MDG 3). 

Increased incidence of vector-borne 

diseases, increases in heat-related 

mortality, and declining quantity and 

quality of drinking water will lead to 

adverse health effects threatening the 

achievement of MDGs 4, 5, 6 and 7. In 

general terms, the realization of MDG 7 

may be jeopardized through climate 

change negatively impacting quality 

and productivity of natural resources 

and ecosystems, possibly irreversibly, 

threatening environmental 

sustainability. Climate change, a global 

phenomenon, calls for a collective 

response in the form of global 

partnerships. 

 

Climate change has the potential to 

cause powerful systemic shocks to 

human development across a large 

number of countries and its threat 

potential in terms of human 

development impacts are likely to prove 

irreversible. The March 2008 European 

Council report provided a striking 

synopsis of the challenges that climate 

change poses to international peace and 

security:  

 

The immediate and devastating effects 

of global warming will be felt far away 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

from Europe, with the poor suffering 

disproportionately in south Asia, the 

Middle East, central Asia, Africa and 

Latin America, ultimately bearing the 

consequences. The fact that the 

consequences of climate change is 

disproportionately felt by the poorest 

who are least responsible for it, makes 

the issue of climate change one of justice 

as much as economic development.  

 

Similarly, the Intergovernmental Panel 

on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth 

Assessment Report noted that the poor 

of this planet are most likely to suffer the 

worst effects of climate change. The 

IPCC 2007 Report maintains that Africa 

is very likely to suffer very damaging 

impacts and at present commands the 

least resources for coping and adapting 

to these stresses:  

 

The regional increase in temperature 

will be higher in Africa than the global 

mean in some cases up to 50%. 

Desertification will advance 

significantly, especially along the Sahel 

zone, which stretches from Senegal in 

the West to Somalia in the East, as well 

as in southern Africa These trends will 

lead to a decrease in the availability of 

water resources and agricultural land 

even as population increases and 

economic growth expands. This 

development will especially affect those 

states in which agriculture plays a 

significant role. 250-550 million people 

could be affected by hunger if there is a 

temperature increase of 3°C; it is likely 

that, by 2050, 75% of all undernourished 

people will be concentrated in Africa. 

Some countries' agricultural yields could 

decline by more than 50% by 2020 and 

incomes by more than 90% by 2100. In 

West Africa, a roughly 500 km long 

metropolitan belt is developing between 

Accra and the Niger Delta, which will be 

highly vulnerable in the face of any rise 

in sea level (Ki-Moon, 16 June 2007). 

 

Climate change, increasing levels of 

Water stress, and Water-Related 

Crises  

A key challenge in responding to climate 

change is the increasing number of 

events of too much and too little water. 

From 1999 to 2008, floods affected 

almost 1 billion people in Asia. The 

corresponding figures were about 4 

million in Europe, 28 million in the 

Americas and 22 million in Africa. For 

instance, the 2010 flood in Pakistan 

affected more individuals than the 

combined impacts of the Indian Ocean 

tsunami (2004), the Kashmir earthquake 

(2005) and the Haiti earthquake (2010). 

Flash floods in the Himalayas are 

estimated to cause the loss of at least 

5,000 lives every year. Water is a critical 

resource for personal and national 

survival, and management of many of 

the world’s 261 international rivers will 

face severe tests: many coastal 

freshwater aquifers will suffer 

Stalinization as a result of sea level rise. 

In Africa alone, according to the IPCC 

2007 report by 2020, between 75 and 

250 million people are projected to be 

exposed to an increase of water stress 

due to climate change. If coupled with 

increased demand, this will adversely 

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affect livelihoods and exacerbate water-

related problems. 

  

Similarly, from various UNDP reports 

(2004) the threat of climate change and 

human development in countries in 

Africa is alarming as increased levels of 

water stress will have a significant 

impact on food security in some 

countries in Africa with yields from rain 

fed agriculture being reduced by up to 

50% by 2020. It added that drought 

affected areas in sub-Saharan Africa 

could expand by 60-90 million hectares, 

with dry land zones suffering losses of 

US$26billion by 2060 (2003 prices), a 

figure in excess of bilateral aid to the 

region. It is estimated, in addition, that 

an additional 1.8 billion people could be 

living in a water-scarce environment by 

2080. Climate change is expected to 

have significant impacts on water 

supplies creating or exacerbating 

chronic shortages and on water quality. 

There is already widespread acceleration 

of glacial retreat and in many areas 

stream flow is shifting from spring to 

winter peaks. If continued, these shifts 

could affect the availability of water for 

agriculture and other uses. Sea’s level 

rise will result in saltwater intrusion into 

coastal fresh water aquifers, potentially 

reducing water resource availability. 

Changes in quantity and intensity of 

precipitation are likely to result in more 

floods and droughts and increased 

demand for irrigation water. Water 

management often requires costly 

investment in infrastructure. Given the 

long economic and physical life of 

reservoirs, water withdrawal, treatment, 

delivery, and disposal systems, adaptive 

responses are generally slower in water 

management than in agriculture (Burton 

and May, 2004). 

    

 One of the expected consequences of 

climate change is a rise in the sea level, 

due to heat expansion of water and 

glacier thawing (Yao, 2002). According 

to the IPCC some of the expected 

consequences of a further increase in the 

mean temperature are sea-level rise, 

melting of glaciers, changed 

precipitation patterns and increased 

frequency of extreme weather events, all 

of which could have severe negative 

effects on human life and well-being as 

well as on the economy (IPCC 2001a). 

For instance, in China the annual 

average size of the area struck by 

flooding period between 1950 and 1989 

was 8 million hectares, and from 1990 to 

1998 this area has increased to 16.7 

million hectares in average (NCCCC, 

2001). Chinese research has estimated 

that a 1-meter rise in sea-level would 

inundate 92,000 square kilometers of 

China’s coast, thereby displacing 67 

million people that live in coastal areas 

(World Bank, 1997 in Harris 2003). The 

coastal areas are also expected to suffer 

from the increased frequency of severe 

storms, salt-water intrusion and land loss 

(IPCC, 2001a).  

 

Major cities have been warned against 

sea level rise (Wagner, 28 March 2007). 

According to a team at Keele University 

and the UK’s Centre for Ecology and 

Hydrology, a large number of countries 

will suffer moderate, high, or severe 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

stress and sea level rise in the long term 

and its collateral impacts on river flow 

as well as ocean discharge regimes will 

cause displacement of many millions of 

people currently living in coastal areas. 

For the small island nations of the world, 

especially the many cultural groups 

living on coral atolls, entire nations may 

face complete submersion. The study 

notes that, “of the more than 180 

countries with populations in the low-

elevation coastal zone, about 70 percent 

have urban areas of more than five 

million people that extend into it. The 

authors then list Tokyo, Japan; New 

York, U.S.; Mumbai, India; Shanghai, 

China; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Dhaka, 

Bangladesh. One could add other cities 

as well to the list, for example, 

Cartagena, Colombia; Lima, Peru; 

Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Recife 

and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

 

Considering the fact that Africa consists 

of four major basins which are bordered 

on the ocean side low-lying, Africa’s is 

not exempted from the exposure to sea 

level-displacement-security (Ibe, and 

Awosika, 1991: 105-12). Nicholls 

(2004) expects 200 million 

environmental migrants by 2080, 

whereas the Friends of Earth (2007) 

expects the same number by 2050 

already, including 1 million in small 

island states. On the regional level, 

UNEP expects in Africa alone 50 

million environmental migrants by 2060 

(Boano, et al., 2008). Christian Aid 

(2007) classifies the expected 

environmental migrants by breaking 

down its predicted number of approx. 

0.9 billion people by 2050 to 250 million 

people affected by droughts, floods and 

hurricanes and 645 million by dams and 

other development projects. Vulnerable 

Africa’s coastal cities include Dakar, 

Senegal; Accra, Ghana; Lagos, Nigeria; 

Luanda, Angola; Cape Town and 

Durban, South Africa; Maputo, 

Mozambique; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; 

and Mombasa, Kenya; and Mogadishu, 

Somalia. In Nigeria for instance, coastal 

flooding plagues parts of the country, 

especially Lagos State and the adjoining 

state of Ogun. Although coastal flooding 

represents a threat to coastal 

communities worldwide, the threat is 

potentially acute for coastal cities, such 

as Lagos, which is already stressed to its 

limits by a population of 17 million. In 

the event of sudden rise of sea level of 

only 20 cm, it is estimated that over 

740,000 people would be displaced in 

Nigeria. A rise of 1 m would lead to 3.7 

million internally displaced persons 

(IDPs), and 2 m would render over 10 

million homeless people in the country 

(Paehler, 2007). 

      

Several African coastal zones, many of 

which already are under stress from 

population pressure and conflicting uses, 

would be adversely affected by sea-level 

rise associated with climate change. The 

coastal nations of west and central 

Africa (e.g., Senegal, Gambia, Sierra 

Leone, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and 

Angola) have low-lying lagoon coasts 

that are susceptible to erosion and hence 

are threatened by sea-level rise, 

particularly because most of the 

countries in this area have major and 

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rapidly expanding cities on the coast. 

Flooding is a common environmental 

challenge in Lagos and its environs, and 

its impact would worsen in the years 

ahead as the sea-level rise interacts with 

other factors, like weak municipal waste 

disposal, poor drainage systems, 

demographic pressure, and collapse of 

social infrastructure. The west coast 

often is buffeted by storm surges and 

currently is at risk from erosion, 

inundation and extreme storm events.  

 

The coastal zone of east Africa also will 

be affected, although this area 

experiences calm conditions through 

much of the year. However, sea-level 

rise and climatic variation may reduce 

the buffer effect of coral and patch reefs 

along the east coast, a result of which 

will lead losing a sizable proportion of 

the northern part of the Nile delta 

through a combination of inundation and 

erosion, with consequent loss of 

agricultural land and urban areas. The 

cost of dislocation which includes 

Stalinization of coastal aquifers and 

other low-lying fresh water resources 

and loss of infrastructure will be difficult 

for poor countries to bear, especially in 

Africa. This observation is further 

reinforced by the Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change report (2007): 

Towards the end of the 21st century, 

projected sea-level rise will affect low-

lying coastal areas with large 

populations. The cost of adaptation 

could amount to at least 5-10% of GDP. 

Mangroves and coral reefs are 

projected to be further degraded, with 

additional consequences for fisheries 

and tourism.   

 

Related to sea level rise is the issue of 

shortage of fresh water resources. Of the 

19 countries around the world currently 

classified as water-stressed, more are in 

Africa than in any other region, and this 

number is likely to increase, 

independent of climate change, as a 

result of increases in demand resulting 

from population growth, degradation of 

watersheds caused by land use change 

and siltation of river basins. A drop in 

water level in dams and rivers could 

adversely affect the quality of water by 

increasing the concentrations of sewage 

waste and industrial effluents, thereby 

increasing the potential for the outbreak 

of diseases and reducing the quality and 

quantity of fresh water available for 

domestic use. The relationships between 

South Africa and Lesotho and between 

Egypt and Ethiopia illustrates that 

conflict may erupt between Downstream 

and upstream riparians. This situation is 

particularly dangerous if the 

downstream country also believes it has 

the military power to rectify the 

situation.). What is important here is that 

such disputes occur not only among 

nation-states but also in areas of ethnic, 

regional, and subnational tensions, 

where competing loyalties and 

sovereignties make politics extremely 

volatile In fact, competition for pastoral 

land and water has been a driving force 

behind the majority of local 

confrontations for the last 70 years in 

some African societies (Okidi, 1992, 

Gleick, 1993:79-112). 

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Fig 6: Water Poverty Index (WPI) 

 
 

Source: Water Poverty Index 

http://www.ceh.ac.uk/sections/ph/WaterPovertyIndex.html  

        

A June 2007 report by the United 

Nations Environmental Programme 

(UNEP) identified drought cycles, 

desertification, and land degradation as 

important contributing factors to the 

current crisis (United Nations 

Environment Programme ,2007; United 

Nations News April 17, 2007). A 2008 

OXFAM report noted that seven 

droughts between 1991 and 2000 have 

increased food insecurity, and prompted 

animal losses conflict, and cattle 

rustling. This is very critical to the 

production of food crops in most 

climate-dependent economic activity. 

As climate patterns shift, changes in the 

distribution of plant diseases and pests 

may also have adverse effects on 

agriculture (Gitay et. al., 2001). 

        

The distribution of fresh water 

worldwide is another source of 

insecurity. Water is an unevenly 

distributed resource, but distribution 

alone is not the main question. The 

central problem for most of the world 

population is access to clean water. It 

relates directly to health, energy, and 

food security. This is where the 

quandary lies. Out of the proven 40 856 

km3 of fresh water worldwide, sub-

Saharan Africa possesses about 9%; East 

Asia and the Pacific, 19%; South Asia, 

12%; the Middle East and North Africa, 

0.67%; and Latin America and the 

Caribbean, about 26%. The OECD 

countries, in turn, contain within their 

territories more than 20% of the global 

fresh water (World Bank 1992), and the 

remaining 13% is in the Eastern 

European region, including the former 

Soviet Union. Control over water 

resources is a vital and strategic human-

security issue. 
    

Also, with the same level of water 

precipitation, a business as usual 

scenario models indicate that likely 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

surface temperature rises by 2100 will 

be in the range 1.40 to 5.80C, dependent 

on latitude and longitude. For Southern 

Africa; sub-continental warming is 

predicted to be greatest in the northern 

regions. Temperature increases in the 

range of between 10C and 30C can be 

expected by the mid-21st century, with 

the highest rises in the most arid parts of 

the country. Of greater consequence for 

South Africa, as a semi-arid country, is 

the prediction that a broad reduction of 

rainfall in the range 5% to 10% can be 

expected in the summer rainfall region. 

This will be accompanied by an 

increasing incidence of both droughts 

and floods; with prolonged dry spells 

being followed by intense storms. It is 

anticipated that climate variability and 

change in the Sahel will have 

overwhelming impacts on agriculture 

and land use, ecosystem and 

biodiversity, human settlements, 

diseases and health, and hydrology and 

water resources. With respect to 

agriculture and land use, climate change 

will likely elicit a significant change in 

agricultural production both in terms of 

the quantum of products as well as the 

location or area of production (Fig.7). 

Such “extreme precipitation events” 

causes increased soil erosion 

(Adejuwon, 2004.The on an ecosystem 

leads to low yield of agricultural 

products for industries that depends on 

it. This is the case in Cocoa farming in 

Okitipupa, of Ondo state in Nigeria 

where changes in rainfall pattern leads to 

change in the yield of cash crops like 

cocoa and rubber, palm oil. This has 

affected cocoa grower scheme and 

contract farming for supply of cocoa 

beans (Nigerian Tribune, Wednesday 23 

April, 2008. Page 26)  
 

 

Fig 7: Production Trend of Major Export Crops in Nigeria (1960-1994) 
 

Crop Metric Tons (000) Export Earnings (in million) Remarks as at 1994 

 1960 1980 1994 1960 1980 1994  

Cocoa 180 143 100 35.0 15.0 10.0 56% consumed locally 

Palm 

Produce 

617 134 22 38.2 0.0 0.0 100% consumed locally 

Rubber 58 98 99 14.2 8.0 10.0 Very Little for Export 

Cotton 151 0.0 262 5.9 0.0 0.0 100% consumed locally 

Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry, Ondo State. Accessed 

from: http://www.ondostate.gov.ng/min_aff.php, on July 28, 2010 

 

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The implication of the above 

environmental trends is that it affects 

security in Nigeria by exacerbating the 

effects of other security stressors, like 

poverty and disease. For instance, 

agriculture is the main source of food, 

industrial raw materials, and 

employment (about 70%) in Nigeria. 

This is very critical for agriculture which 

is the economic mainstay in most 

African countries, except the oil-

exporting countries, contributing 20-30 

per cent of GDP in sub-Saharan Africa 

and 55 per cent of the total value of 

African exports.  

Another way of seeing “Extinction Risk 

from Climate Change” (fig.8) to 

paraphrase Thomas, and 18 co-authors is 

to look at ecosystems and biodiversity. 

Changes in natural ecosystems are 

among the first observable impacts of 

climate change. Generally, apparent 

effects of these threats include loss of 

biodiversity, rapid deterioration in land 

cover and depletion of water availability 

through destruction of catchments and 

aquifers. 

 

 

 
 

Source:  Proceedings of Red Cross /Red Crescent Climate Centre International 

conference 2007   

 

Another IPCC (1997) report noted that, 

where extreme weather events become 

more intense and/or more frequent, the 

economic and social costs of those 

events will increase, and these increases 

will be substantial in the areas most 

directly affected. The report went further  

to state that more and more mega-

disasters such as those associated with 

hurricane Mitch (1998), the Orissa 

super-cyclone (1999), hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita, and tropical storm Stan 

(2005) often produce cascades of 

secondary physical hazards such as 

1. Rising temperatures (global warming) 

2. Changes in local average climate 

(warmer, changing rainfall, higher sea 

levels, etc.) 

3. Changes in local risk of 

extremes (heat wave, flood, 

drought, storm, etc.) 

CHANGING 

VULNERABILITY CHANGING DISASTER RISK 

4. Socio-economic 

circumstances, natural 

resources,  

Political stability, etc. etc. 

Fig 8: Climate change and its implication for Disaster Risk 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

landslides (as Nicaragua during Mitch or 

in Vargas, Venezuela in 1999) or 

downstream inundation when dams 

overflow or dam authorities release large 

volumes of water to safeguard large 

dams (as in Mozambique at present and 

in several recent years).They also trigger 

changes in social relations, including the 

exacerbation of unequal gender relations 

evident in literature on gender 

differentiated impacts of natural 

disasters ( FAO. ,2010a; FAO.,2010b). 

This suggest that the impacts of climate 

change will also be gender 

differentiated.  

 

Climate Change and Gender 

As with natural disasters, climate change 

is likely to exacerbate previously 

existing patterns of discrimination that, 

on average, render women more 

vulnerable to fatalities and reduce their 

life expectancy, especially for 

economically poor women, more than 

men. Disasters that lead to increased 

physical, social and economic 

insecurity, and affect women and 

children, are among some of the push 

factors that give rise to trafficking. 

Therefore, insecure disaster regions 

must be considered as potential areas for 

such harmful activities. Women and 

children are at greatest risk and most 

susceptible to trafficking and 

exploitation in times of disasters (Hodge 

and Lietz, 2007). Natural disasters, such 

as earthquakes and tsunamis, and 

climate-related disasters, such as floods 

or famine crises, may disrupt local 

security and safety nets and increase 

levels of stress, family conflict and 

mental health issues. Therefore, they 

contribute to the neglect of children 

“Overcrowding, chaotic conditions, lack 

of privacy and the collapse of regular 

routines can contribute to anger, 

frustration and violence”, with children 

(especially girls) and women being the 

most vulnerable individuals .Women or 

children face a greater risk of becoming 

targets for exploitation, gender-based 

violence and human trafficking when 

they are unaccompanied, separated or 

orphaned, due to the erosion of social 

controls and protections that normally 

regulate the behavior within households 

and communities (FAO. 2010a; FAO. 

2010b).    

 

Climate Change and National Health 

Problems 

One of the most worrisome national 

security threats of climate change is the 

spread of disease, among both people 

and animals. The U.S. Global Change 

Research Programme, which Congress 

created in 1990 to coordinate the work 

of 13 government agencies on global 

warming, released a report that 

identified 11 key health areas at risk 

from climate change. Among the 

concerns were diseases spread by food, 

water and pests such as mosquitoes and 

ticks; respiratory allergies; asthma and 

other respiratory diseases; and heat-

related deaths and illnesses. The impact 

of disease on Africa's stability has long 

been a concern for U.S. intelligence and 

military officials, and the National 

Intelligence Council recognized in a 

National Intelligence Estimate in 2000 

that "climatic shifts" were likely to allow 

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diseases such as malaria and yellow 

fever to spread to new areas. As 

illustrated in fig Figure 9 below human 

health is being increasingly recognized 

as having strong environmental 

components. Obvious examples include 

the importance to human health of good 

air quality, clean drinking water, clean 

food, and minimal exposure to toxic 

chemicals and UV-B radiation. Recent 

changes in the epidemiology of Lyme 

disease, Hantavirus, malaria, 

trypanosomiasis, schistosomiasis, 

cholera, and yellow fever are 

attributable to changing land-use 

practices. Direct effects include 

increases in heat stress, decreases in 

cold-related mortality, and increases in 

air pollution–related pulmonary and 

allergic complications. Indirect effects, 

some mediated through interactions with 

land-use practices, include increases in 

the geographic distribution of a variety 

of diseases including malaria; dengue 

fever, yellow fever, and Hantavirus.  

 

The increased health risks are likely to 

be most acute in developing countries. 

This is because many climate-related 

infectious and vector-borne diseases are 

associated with warm or hot weather 

conditions and, most importantly, 

because public health systems, which 

can substantially reduce health risks, 

tend to be relatively weak in many 

developing countries (Campbell-

Lindrum et. al., 2003). Africa is at risk 

primarily from increased incidences of 

vector-borne diseases and reduced 

nutritional status. Thus, there is 

increased morbidity and mortality in 

sub-regions where vector-borne diseases 

increase following climatic changes 

would have far-reaching economic 

consequences.  

 

Fig 9: Tropical cyclones, prolonged droughts, extreme rainfall, sea level rise, 

Mosquito Bites 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source:  Proceedings of Red Cross /Red Crescent Climate Centre International 

conference, 2007 

 

 

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Epidemics accounted for 40% of 

disasters in the sub-region during 1975 

to 2003, compared to 20% by flood and 

drought, and cause most human fatalities 

and debilitation. There has been a 

reported increase in the prevalence or 

outbreak of diseases, such as malaria, 

cerebral-spinal meningitis, and heat 

strokes in Nigeria for instance. For 

example, the World Health Organization 

(WHO) reported there were about 

17,500 cases of “serious” outbreaks of 

meningitis in the northern part of 

Nigeria in early 2009. No fewer than 960 

people died of the disease, especially in 

Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe, and 

Zamfara States. Obviously, in an 

environment of worsening poverty and 

falling health standards, citizen’s 

expectation from the government 

increases. 

 

With reference to Nigeria, climate 

change-related flooding has already had 

immediate impacts on food production, 

livelihood assets, and human survival, in 

both rural and urban areas in Nigeria. 

There are about 61 active erosion sites in 

the 177 communities in Anambra State, 

estimated to cost over 17 billion (naira). 

One of such erosion sites in Umuchiana-

Ekwulobia has submerged 75 buildings 

and displaced about 437 families. In 

2008, for instance, erosion washed off 

the rail line linking Aba and Port 

Harcourt, leading to a decline in 

economic activities in Aba, Abia State. 

Soil erosion has destroyed many 

communities and rendered about 

200,000 homeless as internally 

displaced persons in Abia, Enugu, and 

Anambra states of southeastern Nigeria. 

Heavy rainfall and perennial flooding in 

some states, like Adamawa, Bauchi, 

Borno, Kebbi, Lagos, Nassarawa, Niger, 

Ogun, Plateau, Sokoto, and Yobe, in 

2007 affected about 50,000 people, and 

killed about 63 persons. In Bauchi State, 

no fewer than 24 persons were reported 

dead, while 5,787 farmlands and 13,609 

houses, worth over N 717.3 million 

(naira), were destroyed by the flood. In 

Gombe state, similar floods induced 

about a 50 percent hike in prices of 

grains. Consequently, 100 kg bags of 

maize, beans, millet, and sorghum 

increased to N 3,400, N6,000, N4,000, 

and N3,000 respectively, as against N 

1,700, N 3,000, N2,000, and N 1,500 

three weeks before the flood disasters. 

Dr Tunde Arosanyim, chairman of the 

All Farmers Association of Nigeria 

(AFAN), attributed the flood to global 

warming, describing it “as the worst in 

20 years” (Onuoha, & Ezirim, 2010). 

 

Defective Adaptation Measures as 

'Environmental Terrorism’ 

While a key factor in reducing future 

risks in developing countries lies in 

strengthening the development of 

effective adaptation measures (Tol and 

Dowlatabadi, 2002; Ebi et. al. ,2005).By 

default, however, adaptative measures 

that emerged from international climate 

effort such as UNFCCC have their side 

effects, what literarily amounts to 

'environmental terrorism’, “incidents in 

which the environment itself is disrupted 

with ecological consequences of the act" 

(Schwartz, 1998: 484).This  is already 

taking place in the form Mega-projects 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

conceived by nation -states as solutions 

to climate change such as the planting of 

large scale forestry under the Kyoto 

Protocol’s Clean Development 

Mechanism (CDM).For instance ,such  

large-scale investments as in the case of  

bio-fuels which is seen in the medium 

and long term as a substitute for green 

house gas-producing petro-based energy 

sources have had the perverse effect of 

taking considerable land out of food 

production and diverting food grains, 

thus raising food prices and eroding 

biodiversity. On this count, Africa is 

experiencing corporate plunder of its 

land.  According to the International 

Food Policy Research Institute: 

 

150 million in the Democratic Republic 

of Congo, in Ghana, the Norwegian firm 

Biofuel Africa secured 38,000 hectares 

for 'the largest jatropha plantation in the 

world; European companies have 

grabbed over 600,000 hectares of land 

for the cultivation of agro fuels crops; in 

Mozambique Sun Biofuel has acquire 

more than one-seventh of the country's 

total area for growing energy plants 

estimated above 11 million hectares; in 

Swaziland the British multinational D1 

Oils have acquired over 3,000 hectares 

in various parts of the country in 

addition to over 1,000 hectares at D1 

Oils-operated farms, in Madagascar a 

South Korean firm Daewoo Logistics 

plans to buy a 99-year lease on over a 

million hectares for the production of 5m 

tones of corn a year by 2023, and to use 

another 120,000 hectares for the 

production of palm oil; in Sudan there 

are efforts by the state to attract investors 

for almost 900,000 hectares of its land; 

in Ethiopia, the government set aside 24 

million hectares for the production of 

fuel crops (Hailu,2008; Rosengrant, et 

al, 2006; Knaup,2008; Borger, 2008) 

 

Cognizant of the extensive commercial 

interest in development of advanced 

Biofuel, in August 2011, President 

Barack Obama announced that the U.S. 

Navy, along with the Departments of 

Energy and Agriculture, would invest up 

to $510 million to co-finance 

construction or retrofit plants and 

refineries capable of producing 

significant quantities of advanced 

biofuels over the next three years. The 

biofuels being pursued by military and 

commercial interests include hydro-

treated renewable jet fuel (HRJ) and 

hydro-processed renewable diesel fuel 

(HR-D), both of which can be made 

from the same materials or feedstock. 

Production-level feed stocks include oil 

seeds such as camelina, jatropha, 

rapeseed, soybeans and babassu; animal 

fats; and plant and cellulosic materials 

such as crop residue, wood scraps and 

switch grass. In this regards, Seattle-

based Altair Fuels, affiliated with 

Sustainable Oils, is building two 

biorefineries to supply drop-in 

substitutes for traditional jet fuels to the 

Air Force, with production beginning in 

Bakersfield, Calif., in late 2012 and in 

Tacoma, in 2014. Also, Sapphire’s plant 

is projected to be producing 100 million 

gallons of renewable diesel 2013 and jet 

fuel by 2018 and 1 billion gallons by 

2025. Additionally, an Australian 

coalition including Qantas,  Virgin and 

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Boeing plans to ensure that five percent 

of Australia’s aviation fuel will be 

Biofuel by 2015, and 40 percent by 

2050. 

 

To recapitulate, the implications of these 

private-sector investments in Biofuel 

besides causing corporate plunder of 

Africa’s arable lands are bound. 

Ultimately, it leads   to “the destruction 

of Africa’s natural resources of  today on 

tomorrow in satisfying international 

demands by depleting  Africa’s natural 

capital ,its share of nature’s 

resources,”(Ohiaegbu, 2006:106) as the 

commercialization and 

internationalization of Biofuel 

production has become a self-fulfilling 

prophecy. Also, this alternative source 

of energy while reducing the 

dependence of the developed nations on 

fossil fuel from the developing nations 

will reduce the foreign exchange of oil 

exporting nations. These further reduce 

Africa’s adaptive capacity, and help 

explain climate-change-as-a-security-

threat nexus and its implication for 

Africa’s insecurity and sustainable 

development in a changing global 

security architecture in the 21st century. 

 

Conclusion 

In the foregoing analysis, we have 

highlighted some of the current 

environmental trends posed by climate 

change that serve as the transmission 

belts of the security threats to Africa. 

The following observations emerged 

from the analysis :(1) following the 

aftermath of the Cold War and changing 

menus and priorities of world politics 

,the subject matter and foci on security 

discourse  ,security undergone both a 

“broadening” and a “deepening” as well 

as a revisioning which significantly led 

to socially and  environmentally 

reconstitution of human security; (2) the  

main  challenge to security narrative for 

managing current climate variability  

still remains how to link economic 

security with environmental 

sustainability in a non-dematerializing 

global economy,(3) the underlying 

assumptions of mainstream “eco-

efficiency” approach to development 

under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean 

Development Mechanism (CDM) is  

neo-liberalism , at best the merger of 

environment and economics in decision 

making masquerading as multilateral 

mitigation and adaptive measures 

(MMAMs),and therefore, cannot serve 

the cause of sustainable human security; 

finally (4) the search for new paradigms 

for security must take cognizance of the 

cascading consequences of existential 

threat from climate change that do not 

lend themselves to military response and 

are capable of  producing “deadly 

pandemics and other natural disasters” 

with WMD-like effects . 

 

Contingent upon the above 

observations, the following 

recommendations are proffered as 

policy options for Africa’s needed new 

securitization and security threat 

projection:  

I. The importance of climate policy to 

national security demands that it 

receives much greater prioritization, 

and therefore, national security 

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Global Security Challenges and Sustainable Development in Africa:  

An Analysis of Climate-Change-As-A- New Security-Threat Paradigm. 

Dr. Aloysuis-Michaels Okolie; Ohiaegbu  Chiemezue Prince; Okechukwu, Groupson-Paul UC. 

consequences of climate change 

should be fully integrated into 

national security and national 

defense strategies; 

II. The African political leadership 

should securitize the issue of climate 

change by prioritizing a revisioning 

of security which sees individual, 

and human security as the ultimate 

referent object in any securitization 

framework, and projection of 

security; 

III. With multiple, complex connections 

among, environmental quality, 

human migrations, war, disease, 

social disruption, and ecoterrorism, 

security consequences of climate 

change should be fully integrated in  

national development plans of 

African nation-states Since  [t]he 

environment has a profound impact 

on African national interest in the 

sense that environmental forces 

transcend borders and oceans to 

threaten directly the health, 

prosperity and jobs of African 

citizens national security should be  

increasingly  seen as an 

environmental issue, hence 

providing for proactive measures for 

responding to climate shocks that 

may come from within or outside 

Africa’s territorial borders; 

IV. As climate change response actions 

can potentially act as a significant 

factor in boosting sustainable 

economic and social development, a 

national strategy specifically 

designed to bring this about must 

include the major objectives of 

poverty alleviation and the creation 

of jobs; 

V. Two simultaneous and parallel 

courses of action is need: the 

transformation of African energy 

systems, our lifestyles, our 

economies, in order to minimize, and 

preferably prevent, climate change; 

and preparing for the disastrous 

consequences of the global warming 

which is already on the horizon, with 

a view to engage in a comprehensive 

and profound dialogue on the new 

security challenges facing us; 

VI. Having seen that the developed 

countries’ ecological footprint is 

being paid by Africa’s ‘ecological 

debts’, an euphemism for the 

historical responsibility of 

developed countries for climate 

change, Africa’s approach to 

reducing or coping with climate risks 

should be a complementary elements 

of a comprehensive international 

effort, and a national self-help 

reactive–proactive approach which a 

balance of the mitigation and 

adaptation side of the climate change 

response equation. 

 

The policy proposals presented here are 

illustrative rather than exhaustive, but 

they have the potential to strengthen 

national security by reducing Africa’s 

vulnerabilities to climate change. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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