11/09 US document said global warming caused African wars. That was followed by violence, hatred, and demand for billions in 'reparations'

Not so. African civil wars are not due to climate, as was claimed by the US

• going into the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009.

Such claims now said to have been

• made by 'politicians,'

reports Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by senior researcher at Oslo Peace Research Institute.

• Above picture ran 11/24/2009 in BBC article leading up to Copenhagen, saying

civil war in Darfur was due in large part to global warming (which was due to industrialized nations).

• (9/6/10, BBC reports there is of course no connection between climate and war in Africa, but hatred, violence, cash and emotional attachment have already settled in).

11/20/09, Right before the Copenhagen global warming conference in December 2009, the US National Academy of Sciences said global warming exists and

• increases risk of civil war in Africa,"Warming increases risk of civil war in Africa," and that 'foreign aid donors' might want to address the issue. Lead author Marshall Burke.

Violence at Copenhagen global warming conference, 12/19/09, getty

• Above Sudanese diplomat di-aping at Copenhagen global warming conference saying that lack of climate 'financing' would lead to
• 'holocaust' and incineration in Africa.

• Distraught African diplomat at Copenhagen global warming
• conference, 12/19/09, berlingske

• above from BritishBlogs

• 12/12/09, "Copenhagen protest turns violent, hundreds arrested," Huffington Post

12/16/09, "Evo Morales stuns Copenhagen with demand to limit temperature rise to 1 degree C, Bolivian president warns of climate 'holocaust' in Africa, as Hugo Chavez blames capitalism for climate change," Guardian UK, by John Vidal

• 9/6/10, BBC, "Climate shifts 'not to blame' for African civil wars," by M. Kinver

"Climate change is not responsible for civil wars in Africa, a study suggests.

It challenges previous assumptions that environmental disasters, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, had played a part in triggering unrest.

• Instead, it says, traditional factors - such as poverty and social tensions - were often the main factors behind the outbreak of conflicts.

The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the United States.

"Climate variability in Africa does not seem to have a significant impact on the risk of civil war," said author

• Halvard Buhaug, senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo's (Prio) Centre for the Study of Civil War....

He added that it was not too hard to find examples of where

• politicians were publicly making the link

• between the projected impact of climate change and the associated security risks.

Margaret Beckett, when she held the post of British Foreign Secretary,

• tabled a debate on climate change at the UN Security Council in 2007.

Ahead of the gathering, the British delegation circulated a document that warned of "major changes to the world's physical landmass during this century", which

• would trigger border and maritime disputes.

In his paper, Dr Buhaug questioned the findings of research that appeared in PNAS in November last year.

The 2009 paper suggested that climate had been a major driver of armed conflict in Africa, and that future warming

• was likely to increase the number of deaths from war.

US researchers found that across the continent, conflict was about 50% more likely in unusually warm years....

• "My article points to the fact that there has been

too much emphasis on single definitions of conflict and single definitions of climate.

"Even if you found that conflict, defined in a particular way, appeared to be associated with climate,

• if you applied a number of complementary measures - which you should do in order to determine the robustness of the apparent connection -

then you would find, in almost all cases,

• the two were actually unrelated."

Dr Buhaug explained that there were a variety of ways to define what constituted a civil war....

• "I tried quite a few different and complementary definitions of conflict," said Dr Buhaug.

He found that that there was a strong correlation between civil wars and traditional factors, such as economic disparity, ethnic tensions,

• and historic political and economic instability.

"These factors seemed to matter, not so when it came to climate variability," he observed....

When it came to politicians and policymakers, many of the adopted positions were

• "speculative", he added....

He also said that the end of the Cold War also seemed to have had a impact on civil unrest in African nations.

"You did see a shift in the focus of quite a few conflicts during the 1990s, when the ending of

• the supply of arms saw some groups lay down their arms, while others sought alternative forms of funding,
• such as diamonds."

However, he concluded, the uncertainty about the link between conflict and climate did not mean that global climate mitigation and adaptation measures did not matter.

"Targeted climate adaptation initiatives, such as those outlined in various UN (strategies), can have significant positive implications

• for social well-being and human security.

"But these initiatives should not be considered a replacement for traditional peace-building strategies....

• BBC News has approached a number of co-authors on the PNAS November 2009 paper, but we have yet to receive a response."

Hillary Clinton in Copenhagen, ap

• P.S. I believe the suffering people in Africa are in desperate need of help, but won't get it as long as corrupt leaders in the US, UN and in Africa put themselves first. ed.

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