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 * Global climate change - consequences**


 * The effect of climate change on war and conflict**

Researchers warned that global warming presents significant national security challenges to the United States. The United Nations Security Council held the first debate on the impact of climate changed on conflicts. The declining amounts of food, water and land may be leading to an increase in conflict and war. Scientists and military analysts suggest that climate change and its consequences such as food and water instability pose threats for war and conflict. Countries suffering from water shortages and crops loss become vulnerable to insecurity, such as regional instability and aggression. National security experts suggest that the roots of the current conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region are the impacts of climate change, specifically the reduction of available natural resources. The violence in Darfur broke out during a time of drought, after two decades of rain scarcity along with the rising temperatures in the Indian Ocean. In 2009, Marhall Burke, an economist at the University of California argued that higher temperatures increase the risk of civil conflict, and that the climate change predicted by 2030 could cause a 54% increase in armed civil conflict in Africa, leading to 393,000 additional battle deaths. Researchers from Princeton University found that the El Nino climate cycle had a big impact on civil conflict over the past 50 years. El Nino is a part of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation cycle, which involves the periodic warming and cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean. The El Nino phase occurs every three to seven years and tends to bring unusually high temperatures and dry weather to tropical countries. The researchers found that the arrival of the El Nino phase doubled the risk of civil conflict across 90 affected tropical countries, and may help account for a fifth of worldwide conflicts over the past 50 years.