From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

4 RISK AND VULNERABILITY CLIMATE CHANGEBOX 4.6:CLIMATE CHANGE, WATER, AND CONFLICTIN CENTRAL ASIAClimate change is worsening the difficulties faced by theformer Soviet states of central Asia, where cotton farming anddeforestation have already undermined the ecosystem. Like itsneighbours, Tajikistan lives by water-intensive cotton farming,which is based on a dilapidated and hopelessly inefficientirrigation system. A civil war further damaged infrastructure,and nearly a quarter of the population uses irrigation channels –contaminated by farm chemicals – as their main source of drinkingwater. Far downstream, the Aral Sea continues to shrink, exposingthe fertiliser and pesticide dust washed into it in years past,creating a toxic wasteland for people living on its shores.Bad as things already are, climate change could precipitate a‘tipping point’. Tajikistan’s glaciers, the source of most of thewater in the Aral Sea Basin, have shrunk by 35 per cent in thepast 50 years, and what is left will shrink even faster astemperatures rise.In mountain valleys, the rapid melting of ice increases the riskof floods and landslides. Downstream, it is likely to increasecompetition for water. Regional water-sharing systems onceclosely woven together by Soviet design have unravelled andmust now be managed by five fractious and poverty-strickennew countries, each of which wants more water for nationaldevelopment, and all while the overall supply is dwindling –a sure recipe for future tension.BUILDING RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGEThere are two broad routes to reducing people’s vulnerability to harm:reduce the extent of the hazard that they face, or reduce the risk of thathazard harming them. In the case of climate change, urgent action isessential on both fronts. The hazards of climate change are floods,droughts, hurricanes, erratic rainfall, and rising sea levels, the result ofhuman-induced global warming. Those hazards have to be tackled at261