Foreword

As Bruno Latour (2018) points out, causal linkages between climate triggers may follow a path that is difficult to trace and may ultimately be expressed in extreme political positions through a combination of isolated decisions, policies, perceptions and ideologies. If it were indeed possible to trace a chain of causality between unusually protracted droughts in large parts of the Middle East and the Maghreb, wide fluctuations in food prices and availability, local political conflicts, small-scale migration, national armed conflict, and then mass migration to Europe, the initial response of opening borders to take in migrants, migratory saturation, the subsequent closing of borders and the emergence of xenophobic, nationalist and conservative discontent in receiving countries, we could be seeing, on different time scales, a relationship between climate change and extreme political positions in some developed countries. An example of this is what is happening in Europe and the United States, in the latter case fomented by the country’s President, who has stigmatized migration towards the southern border.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Climate Action