Ecological Crisis and War Linked in Complex Dynamic

The Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon says there are many reasons to be glad about international agreements reached during the recent G8 Summit regarding global warming resulting from climate change. But he gives some very real reasons to turn celebration into determined work when he brings up the newest victory won regarding Sudan's Darfur. His opinion article is published in the Washington Post.

Ban Ki Moon says that Heiligendamm, Germany G8 Summit had one "modest goal" regarding the global climate conditions and that was to "win a breakthrough on climate change." He also says the Summit won that breakthrough in an agreement to cut greenhouse gases by 50 percent before 2050. What Moon calls an "especially gratifying" component of the agreement is that the methods for achieving that cut "will be negotiated via the United Nations" to ensure international uniformity and conformity--everyone will contribute to the reduction.

Moon goes on to say that another great victory has more recently been won: "This week, the global focus shifted." He states that this week, the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir accepted a plan to permit a United Nations peacekeeping force to be deployed in conflict torn Darfur, Sudan. The peacekeepers will be a joint United Nations-African Union force. Moon says the this modest step is "large in humanitarian potential." In another editorial celebrating World Refugee Day, which is discussed by AC CP Kareyth Patrick, Antonio Guterres, who is High Commissioner for Refugees for the United Nations, adds to the scope of this comment by saying that tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees who have been in exile for up to ten years are beginning to return to their homeland.

These two victories, Moon states, are linked. A conflict that has claimed, as Moon says, "more than 200,000 lives during four years of political inertia" has a "complex dynamic." Moon makes the statement that the conflict in Darfur "began as an ecological crisis." This crisis arose at least in part "from climate change."