The connection between violence and environmental hazards has been explored in the literature, and it has been proposed that first exposure to environmental hazards may influence societies becoming more vulnerable to violence, which may in turn make them more prone to negative consequences from environmental hazards (Scheffran et al., 2014). The Mediterranean region has long been a crisis region where many natural drivers can be identified together with political, social and economic ones, leading to armed conflict. One of the most well-known examples is the Arab Spring, during which protests spread from Tunisia to elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East (Juhola et al., 2022), see Figure 2.4.9.
In this case, the global food system was experiencing multiple supply crises, leading to a tipping cascade that began in 2008 and 2011. The reasons included high oil prices, extreme weather events that resulted in droughts and harvest losses in major wheat-producing regions including China and Eastern Europe, land investments and bioenergy demand. All these contributed to a speculation on food prices, which led to export restraints and pressure on the international market price of wheat. As a tipping cascade, these factors triggered shortages and rising international market prices of food crops (Johnstone and Mazo, 2011).
In 2010, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and Ukraine (all among the world’s top 10 wheat exporters) were affected by severe weather anomalies, such as droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and air pollution, while the Republic of Moldova was struck by floods and hailstorms, causing significant losses of grain yield (Giulioni et al., 2019).The Middle East countries are heavily import-dependent in terms of their food, wheat in particular, and are highly vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of food in global markets (Schilling et al., 2020). Increases in food prices and low incomes created a situation where food insecurity was rapidly rising (Sternberg, 2012). The self-immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia in 2010 is largely seen as a trigger which provoked riots across the neighbouring countries (Kominek and Scheffran, 2011).
These events took place in the changing geopolitical landscape, which included the fall of autocratic regimes; political destabilisation and the rise of populist movements in Europe; refugees and civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen; terrorism; and interventions from external powers. It is important to note that no protests took place in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries with high per-capita incomes because of adequate levels of food security and sufficient adaptive capacities, while political and economic responses in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya led to changes in regimes (Sternberg, 2012).
Several studies analysed the role of climate change as a contributing factor to the Syrian civil war (Gleick, 2017; Kelley et al., 2017; Selby et al., 2017a; Selby et al., 2017b). In the years before the Syrian rebellion (2007 to 2009), a long drought period hit the region, which increased the vulnerability of the population, especially in rural areas (Kelley et al., 2015). Accumulating agricultural losses led to farmers leaving their land and putting pressure on governments to address the crisis, leading to overall dissatisfaction with governance in the region. Environmental factors were complemented by a complex constellation with economic, social and demographic conditions, governmental failure and dissatisfaction with existing regimes (Juhola et al., 2022).
Another tipping cascade of the Syrian civil war was the US invasion in Iraq 2003, the Arab Spring, regional power rivalries and the emergence of the ‘Islamic State’. The climate role is disputed, between those who highlighted the catalytic and cascading effect of the drought on the conflict (Gleick, 2014) and those who found the failed government policy more influential compared to neighbouring countries which did not have a civil war, like Jordan (Selby et al., 2017). Reviewing the evidence, Ide (2018) concludes that large economic losses to the agricultural sector and the resulting rural-to-urban migration are supported but are still poorly understood and contested as reasons for conflict.
These two tipping cascades of the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war further contributed to the refugee crisis of 2015, when hundreds of thousands of refugees entered Europe. These events demonstrate how cascading stressors can trigger multiple events that overwhelm adaptive capacities and stability of several countries (see CLD, Figure 2.4.9) (Scheffran, 2016). These events further demonstrate how in an interconnected world tipping points can escalate into a chain of cascading events, which undermine international stability. The EU was unprepared to govern the situation, media coverage reinforced threat perceptions, tensions, nationalism, populism and the securitisation of migration (see Migration sections 2.3.4 and 2.4.4.3). In order to govern these types of tipping cascades, it is suggested that continued collaboration between Europe and the Middle East is required to build long-term structures that can absorb or stop tipping cascades, or alleviate their impacts when they take place (Demirsu and Cihangir-Tetik, 2019).