Search Results (5)

This study investigated the scientific progress of climate security studies through a literature review and discussed its risks in East Asia. Climate security refers to the protection of countries and societies from conflicts and riots caused by climate change. As climate change becomes more apparent, climate security has been vigorously debated in the international community. Climate security risks in East Asia, however, are not yet widely discussed. This literature review identified that climate change increases the risk of conflict not only through direct threats to people and societies from extreme weather events and natural disasters, but also indirectly through various pathways, such as shortages of water and other resources, outbreaks of climate migration, disruptions in food production, economic and social disturbances, and geopolitical changes. Considering the climate-conflict pathways identified by the literature review, East Asia may face (1) tensions caused by climate emigrants, (2) conflicts over loss of territories and fishery areas, (3) conflicts caused by water shortage, (4) instability caused by heavy rain and floods, and (5) geopolitical risks of rare earth sourcing, green industrial policies, and the Arctic. East Asian countries need to lower climate security risks in the region through cooperative international measures such as climate change mitigation, vulnerability reduction, and policy dialogue. Full article

In this study, we use restlessness as an input for a rice crisis indicator, since restlessness rather than rice price provides a comparable year-to year context. We outline the significant increase in the use of unprecedented restlessness (UR) as an indicator for rice crises. The UR approach involves a precedence analysis, in contrast with the existing approach, the price shock analysis. We test UR as a new indicator for rice crises at the national level, which can be applied in Asia and other countries around the world where rice is the staple food. Strong indicators point out the effectiveness of strategic government programs and are able to assess solutions and detect rice crises, while weak indicators are only reliable in detecting whether or not there has been a crisis. UR is tested across 43 countries using two new statistics: success probability (SP) and constraint probability (CP). As a consequence of SP and CP calculations, a large number of IMR control charts for UR analysis are constructed to provide evidence that UR is a strong indicator. The optimum validity measurement result is achieved with SP = 8/26 = 0.31 and CP = 8/14 = 0.57. This means that the UR detects and is followed by only 31% of riot events. Since the value of SP is less than 0.6, we can conclude that the UR indicator is not considered valid as an indicator of rice crises at the national level. The values of CP and SP are determined subjectively as equal to 0.6. This is the main cause of the emergence of new problems in the calibration of UR as an indicator of rice crises. The subjective success criteria trigger a question regarding why the value is 0.6, for which there is no scientific justification. Based on this background, we continue to objectively establish success criteria for UR validity. After conducting a risk analysis involving a crisis recovery cost (CRC) to crisis anticipation cost (CAC) ratio, it is found that the probability of the CRC-to-CAC ratio having values greater than 7 is 0.76, which means the CRC-to-CAC ratio tends to be higher than 7. Objectively, it is concluded that UR, which has been defined as rice crisis indicator at the national level, is an important indicator. Full article

Many discussions following the 2007/08 food price crisis have revolved around the magnitude of the negative impacts that it may have had on food security worldwide. In South-Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMC), food security is strongly interrelated with several key economic and political issues. Many of these countries are becoming increasingly import-dependent, particularly on cereals, which are the essential raw material for human and animal food and feed. Due to both their economic system structure and consumption, the SEMC are responsible for a third of world cereals imports, whereas they account for only 5% of the world population. Given the set of constraints and this dependence on global markets, SEMC will be probably more exposed to severe swings in agricultural commodity prices in the coming years. In this view, this study examines the dependence structure among global food grain markets and Morocco and provides flexible models for dependency and the conditional volatility GARCH. A copula-based GARCH model has been carried out to estimate the marginal distributions of Morocco and world cereals commodity price changes. The results revealed that the joint co-movement between agricultural commodity price changes around the world and in Morocco, are generally considerable and there exists asymmetric tail dependence. Full article

Following widespread food riots in 2008, many people argued that high food prices cause political instability and civil unrest in the form of food riots. However, subsequent research has demonstrated that political, cultural, and economic factors confound the impact of price in determining whether a food riot occurs. This paper contributes to this growing body of literature by exploring: (1) the relationship between household demographic characteristics and reported intent to riot due to future food price rises; and (2) the relationships between people’s diets and their reported intent to riot due to future food price rises. We hypothesize that local context, including demographic factors and dietary patterns, combine to predispose some groups of people to riot when food prices rise. This hypothesis is tested using household surveys (N = 300) and three focus groups discussions (N = 65) carried out in three cities in the Central African nation of Cameroon that experienced widespread food riots in 2008. Results show that some 70% of the respondents would riot if food prices went up. Also, in the event of food price rises: (1) households in Cameroon’s major cities are more likely to riot than the citizens of smaller cities; (2) Households with relatively higher educational level, high incomes, are less likely to riot. Finally, the relationship between dietary patterns and propensity to riot is not straightforward as changes in consumption of different food groups influence propensity to riot in different ways. Overall, this paper demonstrates that preemptive strategies designed to avoid future food riots in Cameroon must take into consideration these spatial, demographic, and dietary factors. Full article

The impact of resources on social unrest is of increasing interest to political leaders, business and civil society. Recent events have highlighted that (lack of) access to critical resources, including food, energy and water, can, in certain circumstances, lead to violent demonstrations. In this paper, we assess a number of political fragility indices to see whether they are good indicators of propensity to food riots. We found that the most accurate is the Political Instability and Absence of Violence Indicator of the Worldwide Governance Indicators by the World Bank. We compute a likelihood of experiencing a food riot for each quartile of this index. We found that the self-sufficiency of food does not seem to affect the likelihood of the occurrence of food riots, but that the level of political stability of a country does have a role. In addition, we identify a monthly and annual threshold for the Food and Agriculture Organisation Food Price Index, above which food riots in fragile states are more likely to occur. Full article