GLOBAL RESOURCES ANALYSIS


DANGERS | REGIONAL TENSIONS


But maybe regional water deficit is the most severe potential regional political tension maker. Water is not some political disagreement, but a daily need for living, to survive, to wash and feel fresh and for growing crop. What if Turkey decides to dam the rivers that origin in her territory for energy generation purpose and/or for industrial, domestic and agricultural use, with the motivation that they have decide to stop free water exports. Syria and Iraq would than be severely damaged by such a decision and certainly must suddenly pay an annual price for just an already ten of thousand years existing river water delivery to Turkey. Not on this map: some of the rivers of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran also spring in Turkey. Turkey is just the water supplier of a huge part of the Middle East and some of Central Asia. And this is just one example: there are above 100 identical potential tension creating situations known globally. This huge impact decisions are not may in times of cheap energy or water surplus, but if they certainly can be made in times of energy and water shortage if the mutual relation is already somewhat disturbed. PeakOil and Climate Change certainly can cause huge regional tensions. Tibet is literally the water tower of Asia. All of the ten major watersheds originated in the mountains of the Tibetan High Plateau, and these ten rivers spread water throughout Asia. The combination of these ten in Tibetan mountains originated rivers serve 50% percent of the world's population. Although this huge volume of water is created mostly in Tibet, only 1 percent of this water is used by Tibetans. China wants to channel water from other rivers to the Yellow River, because the Yellow River has a water deficit, leaving less water to flow trough the tabbed rivers. Other examples are oil/gas fields: they sometimes cross national borders. In times of PeakOil neighbor nations could have severe arguments about what is from whom and about production limits. Certainly since drilling something is that no longer can be done vertically, but also diagonally of horizontally. Surinam versus Guyana. The oil field on their mutual border has been granted by Guyana by the International Court, but this decision has been 'oil on the fire' for the opposition parties of the current Surinam Administration. An other regional tension in Pakistan / India. Also Venezuela / Colombia is a regional tension. National leaders that feed pure political regional tensions damage the interest of their nation. This applies also to Venezuela and Colombia. And Venezuela has a huge trade deficit to Colombia, something that makes the situation once more complicated.


Author: Gijs Graafland


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