Climate change and energy security are among the crucial security issues according to Control Risks, an independent, specialist risk consultancy. The new RiskMap for 2007 is a survey of clues for risks in national landscapes for the year ahead. It aims to build a collective understanding of global trends and their potential local risks for business. Besides global scale threats, a risk profile is developed for each country, including political and security risks. It becomes clear that security will be increasingly hard to achieve in an age of diverse globalized as well as local threats.

On the global level, climate change is identified as a crucial security issue. The report predicts that, without urgent action, global warming could lead to an increase in resource conflicts, mass human displacement and disruption to agriculture and food supplies over the next 15 years. The RiskMap 2007 also looks at one of the longer-term consequences of climate change: if global warming results in longer ice-free periods each year, the functional North-West Passage joining the Atlantic and Pacific could become a commercially viable navigation channel within the next 20 years. This could bring both huge savings in shipping costs and opportunities for exploitation of natural resources in areas newly freed of ice. These factors have already generated substantial international interest and competing sovereignty claims. The example shows, that global warming will not only bring disputes over diminishing resources (such as water), but will also cause competition over new opportunities for economic gains. In addition, the related issue of tight energy supplies is addressed by the report, as oil exporters have an increasingly sophisticated understanding of their leverage on oil price and supply, while demand (especially in India and China) rises. In line with these concerns, the report states: "the uncertainty of energy supplies from Russia and the Middle East has prompted a number of EU states to start thinking more seriously about reducing demand". Seen in this light, the upcoming Strategic Energy Review of the European Commission also needs to be regarded as an important instrument of risk prevention. (by Katja Hummel)

The full report can be ordered from Control Risks: http://www.control-risks.com
 

Published in:ECC-Newsletter, December 2006