Failure to adapt to global climate change led to unrest across the Arab World. Photo: Saleem-Homsi (Flickr)

Incompetent, unjust governance by some of the Middle East’s worst despots brewed a recipe for disaster before the Arab Spring, but it took climate change to turn up the heat.

Here's how local droughts, forced migrations and international trade disruptions, all quietly driven by global warming, finally helped topple the Arab world's tyrants.

Drought and Resiliency

The Middle East holds 12 of the world's 15 most water-scarce countries, Thomas Friedman wrote last week in "The Other Arab Spring." In Syria, for example, almost two-thirds of the country's land was affected by one of the worst droughts in its history over the last six years. Nearly 75 percent of the Syrians most dependent on agriculture suffered “total crop failure,” meaning 800,000 people lost their entire livelihood. Another 1.3 million were affected when herders in Northeast Syria lost around 85 percent of their livestock.

To be on the right side of history in regards to the Arab Spring, Friedman argues, one of the best things the United States can do is "to invest in climate-adaptive infrastructure and improvements in water management — to make these countries more resilient in an age of disruptive climate change."

Western governments and aid organizations, in collaboration with local governments, can boost resiliency by:

• Investing in improved irrigation technology and programs to implement it.


• Using advances in mapping techniques to develop early warning systems and drought contingency plans.


• Encouraging sustainable livestock practices in drought prone areas.


• Investing in drought-resistant crops such as cassava.

Crop Failure and Smart Urbanization Policies

When agriculture fails, mass exodus begins. In January, an estimated 200,000 rural Syrian families moved to urban areas when the Halaby pepper crop failed, putting even more strain on cities already struggling to provide for existing citizens.

In an article titled “An Agricultural Peace Dividend,” Root Capital CEO William Foote explains the necessity of agriculture in post-conflict areas: “Because the majority of people in many post-conflict countries are agriculturalists and because the industrial base takes longer and requires more capital and infrastructure to rebuild, agriculture is the only sector that can rapidly absorb large amounts of labor and rebuild household economies.”

To curb the effects of mass urbanization and strengthen rural farming economies, local governments should:

• Invest in agricultural advancements to help farmers who remain on their land become more efficient.


• Improve urban infrastructure--particularly in urban slums--to accommodate the inevitable influx of migrant farmers.


• Develop incentives for companies to create jobs in rural areas--especially for women--to supplement income from agricultural yields or replace it in their absence.

Price Spikes and Protectionism

“Extreme weather throughout the globe” added to the Middle East's chaos, note Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo in report titled “Global Warming and the Arab Spring. Canada, the second-largest wheat exporter, lost a quarter of its 2010 harvest due to irregular rainfall. Russia, China, Ukraine and Kazakhstan suffered 2010 droughts that greatly diminished their crops. Brush fires reduced Russia’s wheat harvest to 60 million tons, down from 97 million in 2009. Because of this, Russia banned wheat, barley, rye and maize exports.

For the powers that be (or, rather, were) this set the stage for disaster. In the last six months of 2010, Egypt--Russia’s largest wheat consumer--received only 1.6 tons of Russian wheat compared to 2.8 tons received over that same period in 2009. By February 2011, the Egyptian government was overthrown.

In order to smooth global price spikes and avoid disruptive protectionism, the public and private sector should:

• Increase international pressure on rulers who ignore the mounting effects of climate change in the most afflicted countries.


• Create international drought contingency plans.


• Invest in agricultural technology that weans rural areas from reliance on volatile fossil fuels.

While the citizens of these countries endured decades of poor governance, six months of drought was the tipping point. If global climate change was one of myriad sources of the Arab world's turmoil, slowing it just might be a solution.

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Educated youth in Tunisia want employment that utilizes their skills and passion. Photo: Joy Portella/Mercy Corps.

"Can Tunisia become the Silicon Valley of the Arab World?" Columnist David Rohde explores this question in The Atlantic:

Tunisia's revolution and its aftermath show how rapid technological change has altered economic, diplomatic and political dynamics worldwide. But outdated American notions of power - particularly in Congress - are preventing the United States from keeping pace. A decades-long American practice of spending vastly more on military efforts than civilian ones is handicapping a vital attempt here to create a democratic, free-market country that is a model for the Arab world.

The United States' strongest weapons against Islamic militancy are not CIA operatives, drones or infantry battalions. They are the modern, new high-tech office buildings that Hewlett-Packard, Fidelity, SunGard, Microsoft and Cisco have opened here in recent years. In the wake of the revolution, Tunisians dream of their country becoming a hub for cloud, big-data and open-government computing in the region.

Tunisians say they do not want handouts, loans or traditional aid. They want investment, exchange and a chance to be part of the world economy. So far, Washington's antiquated focus on military might has let them down.

David Rohde is a columnist for Reuters, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a former reporter for The New York Times. Read the full article in The Atlantic.

Protesters wave Egypt's flag. Photo: C. Elle (flickr)

This story was republished in The Christian Science Monitor.

No one needs a report to explain what ‘Arab Spring’ youth continue to demonstrate for: jobs. But evidence that quantifies their sentiments could be the ticket to real policy change.

That’s the idea driving a partnership between an organization focused on Arab youth employment, Silatech, with the world’s leading polling and analysis company, Gallup. Rather than analyze a country’s problems by comparing traditional economic and demographic metrics—GDP and unemployment rate, age and level of education—Silatech and Gallup turn the opinions of Arab youth into comparable data.

Twice a year since 2008, the team has asked thousands of Arab youth their views about three areas the group sees as essential to driving change: job creation and availability, access to the resources they need to find meaningful employment, and the policies they see in the way of their success.

“The report offers a fresh approach to understanding how young people across the Arab world are being affected by, and are responding to, the global economic downturn. Further, this report offers a realistic view of how young people see their future, their prospects, and the paths they so earnestly wish to pursue.” - Rick Little, Silatech's chairman of the executive committee and member of the board of trustees.

With more than 100 million people between the ages of 15 and 29 in the Middle East and North Africa—30 percent of the population—the region is experiencing an unprecedented “youth bulge.” We’ve already seen how the stability of the region depends on whether these educated, healthy, young people have opportunities to be productive citizens. Policymakers have no choice but to get things right given current circumstances.

The latest Silatech/Gallup poll was conducted just before the uprisings in the region began, in late 2010, and found a mixed bag of progress. According to the report:

• Young Arabs are more optimistic about the direction of their local economies, while their perspective of national economies has soured. Policymakers should harness this sentiment by focusing economic interventions at the local level, aimed at individual cities instead of nationwide programs.
• Mobile phone access has soared among youth. Internet penetration remains low, but rising. Silatech notes that this development provides policymakers with new opportunities to communicate with this key demographic, as well as the strong potential for online- and mobile-based youth businesses.
• Fewer Arab youth perceive they can afford good housing, which correlates with limited GPD growth and skyrocketing property prices documented in the region. Youth see the lack of affordable housing as a barrier to achieving independence.
• In a number of countries, youth do not trust their government to allow new businesses to earn much money, significantly reducing their willingness to risk starting a new venture. Suggestions include policies to scale small- and medium-sized enterprises and streamline paperwork for transparency.
• In some countries, youth perception of the judicial system has improved, which helps youth feel confident that their assets and property will remain safe. Countries trailing behind in this indicator would do well to implement similar legal reforms to create the environment needed for healthy entrepreneurship.

Download the full Silatech/Gallup report here.

Silatech and Gallup’s analysis of Arab League members’ progress toward creating a better climate for job creation and entrepreneurship results in realistic policy prescriptions. These course corrections could create the change these young people catalyzed and bring significant growth to the region. But the prescriptions cost money; money the region doesn’t have, especially during ongoing global financial crises.

If President Obama’s proposed 2013 budget request is approved, some governments in the region may benefit from an influx of more than $800 million to support “long-term economic, political, and trade reforms to countries in transition—and to countries prepared to make reforms proactively,” according to Reuters.

It’s hard to change policy based on anecdote. But when emotions can be turned into cold, hard numbers, lawmakers can harness the world’s largest and most untapped resource—youth—with policies that create real change.

Gallup analyst Ahmed Younis speaks at Mercy Corps. Details

Details and tickets here.

Tunisia becomes the first country of the Arab Spring to hold a general election. Photo: Gwenaël Piaser (Flickr)

While the world's eyes are fixed on violence in Egypt and Libya, the Arab Spring’s most important step yet will depend not on blood shed, but on votes cast.

Tunisia becomes the first country of the Arab Spring to hold general elections on Oct. 23. Voters will elect 217 members to a general assembly charged with drafting the country’s constitution over the next year. The voting will take place in a system of proportional representation, with parties providing a list of their candidates.

At least half of all listed candidates will be women, per the election’s rules. Though for Tunisia, this is not so surprising. 'Tunisia is considered one of the most liberal Arab countries, with high levels of female participation in public and political life,' according to BBC News.

There are three major political parties vying for votes. The most widely supported is Ennahda, an Islamist party that was banned under Tunisia’s former president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The two other contending parties are both secular. Each party has said it'd be open to a power-sharing coalition, depending on the results of the election.

Tunisia’s economy is expected to see the highest growth rates out of any country affected by the Arab Spring, and that is due at least in part to peaceful politics. 'We expect activity to continue improving in the coming months particularly if the elections and the political transition thereafter take place in a smooth manner,' said Alia Moubayed, an economist at Barclays Capital who was quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek.

These elections represent the closest any of the Arab Spring countries have come to a full transition of power. As other countries continue to rise up against corrupt regimes, pay close attention on Sunday as 3.9 million Tunisians head to the polls. The fate of the Arab Spring may depend not on how revolutions are started and waged, but on whether they can culminate in new and stable regimes.

Ben Osborn is a 2011 graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

Anger over food prices helped lead to Muammar el-Gadhafi's assassination Thursday. Photo: Thierry Ehrmann (flickr)

Muammar el-Gadhafi gave Libya's people plenty of reasons to hate him. But it may have taken climate change to do him in.

That's the interesting perspective of CSR Talkwire's Francesca Rheannon, who explained last March how, across the Arab world, climate change begat draught begat famine begat unrest:

The recent sharp rise in food prices was the spark to the flame fanned by decades of tyranny, beginning in Tunisia, spreading to Egypt and now roiling Bahrain, Algeria, Oman, Yemen and Libya. Libya imports fully 80 percent of its food; the other countries are also heavy food importers. … While other factors play a role, climate change has been the major driver behind higher food prices.

In May, a study in the journal Science estimated that climate change was responsible for a 3 percent drop in global wheat and corn output, enough to drive commodity prices up 20 percent from where they would otherwise have been, Reuters reported.

The cost of food was just one of many factors in Gadhafi's bloody assassination Thursday. But if the world's fossil fuel dependence continues to drive up global temperatures and food prices, the world's poorest won't be content to be the only victims of climate change. Starving people take governments and leaders down with them—sometimes through violence.

Gadhafi's many sins made his government especially vulnerable. But history may remember him as the canary in the climate-change coal mine.