"The causality around food security and climate stressors runs in both directions—food insecurity can contribute to instability and violence, just as surely as instability and violence can lead to food insecurity. In Syria, both are true. Between 2006 and 2011, more than 60 percent of Syrian territory endured the worst long-term drought in recorded history. The country’s total water resources were cut in half, with disastrous implications for rural areas. The primary northeastern wheat-growing region suffered 75 percent crop failure and 85 percent losses in livestock. The United Nations estimated that 800,000 Syrians lost their livelihood as a result of these droughts: 1 million Syrians were declared food insecure, and 3 million were driven into extreme poverty. This profound climate and food crisis led to large-scale migration: In 2010 alone, 50,000 Syrian families moved to cities from rural areas and, in 2011, an estimated 200,000 rural Syrians left rural areas for cities. Syria’s urban centers were ill-equipped to deal with this influx, with poor infrastructure and their own endemic water shortages and high levels of unemployment.
The disaffection with the government—which was unable to respond effectively to the social and health needs of migrants—brought diverse ethnic and religious groups into close contact under trying circumstances and contributed to the protests which, following President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal repression, morphed into civil war. Climate change and food insecurity did not by themselves cause the rebellion, but they contributed to the circumstances that gave rise to it. And similar stressors will likely drive the next major upheaval, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere."
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