Climate change is to blame for Syria war, claims Charles
... finally someone agrees with Charlotte Church
THE Syrian crisis that is spreading terror across the world was prompted by climate change, the Prince of Wales has claimed.
In a controversial interview, Charles argued that the cumulative effect of global warming was ‘one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria’.
He warned that a decades-long failure to tackle climate change inevitably meant ‘greater conflict over scarce resources’ and that even the Pentagon had realised the root cause of war and terrorism was ‘what we’re doing to our environment’.
His outspoken comments were made in an interview with Sky News recorded before the Paris attacks.
Charles claimed the current crisis resulted from five or six years of drought in Syria, which forced vast numbers to leave their homeland.
His remarks follow US research in which scientists said that climate change was a key factor in the 2011 uprsing that sparked the civil war in which 250,000 Syrians have died and more than 11million have been forced from their homes.
Members of Barack Obama’s administration echoed the warning, as did singer Charlotte Church, who faced public ridicule after giving her views on BBC1’s Question Time last month.
Speaking ahead of the UN climate conference in Paris, Charles warned the globe was heading towards ‘catastrophes and chaos’ and without urgent action ‘life will become very, very complicated indeed’ and the world’s problems far worse.
‘We are now facing a real possibility of nature’s bank going bust,’ he said. ‘Do we really have to face catastrophes and chaos before we understand that real action needs to be taken? The difficulty with all that, is that by the time you try to take the action, it’s already too late.
‘Some of us were saying twentysomething years ago that if we didn’t tackle these issues you would see ever greater conflict over scarce resources and ever greater difficulties over drought, and the accumulating effect of climate change, which means that people have to move.
‘There’s very good evidence indeed that one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria, funnily enough, was a drought that lasted for about five or six years, which meant that huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land.’
Asked about the direct link between climate and terrorism, he said: ‘It’s only in the last few years that the Pentagon have actually started to pay attention to this. I mean it has a huge impact on what is happening. There are endless problems arising all over the place, therefore we deal with them in a short term way.
‘We never deal with the underlying root cause – which, regrettably, is what we’re doing to our natural environment.’
Charles said it would be ‘very difficult’ to get an international agreement on tackling global warning at the UN conference.
He has been an outspoken campaigner on environmental issues for decades. In July he warned of the ‘profound changes’ required to ‘limit climate change, conserve resources and keep ecosystems functioning’. While his latest comments are likely to face criticism, he will have the full support of Miss Church. The 29-yearold was derided on Twitter for saying on Question Time: ‘There is evidence to suggest that climate change was a big factor in how the Syrian conflict came about.
‘From 2006 to 2011 they experienced one of the worst droughts in its history, which of course meant there were water shortages and crops weren’t growing.
‘There was a mass migration from rural areas of Syria into the urban centres, which put more strain and resources were scarce... which apparently did contribute to the conflict.’