If the Nobel Prize for peace is awarded to persons or organizations that contribute to world harmony, why was the 2007 honour bestowed jointly on Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for environmental work?

The Nobel Committee answered this question when awarding this year's prize. It said, in diplomatic language, that it wanted to bring "a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world's future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind." Or, to translate the meaning of "security", environmental stresses can cause political conflicts.

The thinking of the Nobel Committee and the magnitude of this issue is given clearer definition by Werner Kurtz, a Canadian senior research fellow of the IPCC: "It's a recognition of the impact that global climate change will have on hundreds of millions of people around the world." The thought of masses of environmental refugees trying to resettle to more secure places on the planet has disturbing international implications that are now gaining attention and concern.

A simple exercise of the imagination can anticipate what could happen when such numbers of people are stressed or displaced by environmental crises. Rising sea levels, for example, will eventually uproot those who have no recourse but to find higher ground. Some small populations on South Pacific atolls are already being re located in host countries. But similar events in more populous countries, such as Bangladesh, will present far more dramatic and complex challenges. Most of that country's 150 million people are located on the low-elevation Ganges delta, a place already being contaminated by salt water and diminished by rising seas. Its Moslem population is unlikely to be welcomed into a neighbouring Hindu India. And Pakistan, their most likely new home, is far away and overcrowded. Indeed, increasing population pressures will couple with finite land, limited food supplies, other scarce resources and cultural differences to magnify the disturbance caused by environmental dislocation.

Or consider the availability of fresh water. Limited water supplies are already a source of stress in the Middle East, particularly between the Israelis and Palestinians. In Asia, new Chinese dams in the Himalayan Plateau are jeopardizing river flow to downstream countries, threatening their local ecologies, fisheries, and water needs. Many of the world's rivers flowing from one country to another are failing to supply the multiple demands for drinking water, irrigation and waste disposal.

Of 19 major climate models by the IPCC, all predict drying trends for dry places as warming oceans drop more water elsewhere and drag dry air across arid regions. Australia and the Mediterranean are at risk. So is a wide swath across sub-Sahara Africa. Semi-arid areas of Mexico will get drier, as will most of western and eastern USA, and particularly the southern states. Weather models for the US predict a precipitation drop from 10 -30 percent by 2050. California, Arizona, Georgia, Texas and Florida are already experiencing this trend. Less rain and falling aquifers together with rising irrigation demands and larger populations will exert pressure on Canada to provide water to our parching neighbour to the south.

A group of retired American admirals and generals are now calculating global warming as a "threat multiplier" that exacerbates international conflict and compromises US security. The CIA is running "threat scenarios" based on destabilization caused by climate change. In an actual situation, decades of drought in Darfur is forcing the migration of traditional Arab grazing cultures into the territory of African farming cultures. Climate changes have ended generations of peaceful co existence. Ethnic and religious differences have triggered a bloody and brutal conflict that is being called the first "climate change war".

The Belgium-based International Crisis Group (ICG) is now plotting climate change as an element in political instability. "Databases that plot civil wars and water availability...show that when rainfall is significantly below normal, the risk of low-level conflict escalating into a full-scale civil war approximately doubles in the following year" (New Scientist, June 2-8/07).

Water is just one of many environmental factors that could destabilize currently calm situations. Consider the melting Arctic ice and the building tension it is causing between Canada's sense of territory and Russian seabed claims for resources. The same tension ignited a mini-stew between Canada and Denmark over an obscure piece of rock called Hans Island. The likelihood of an ice-free Northwest Passage becoming an international shipping channel is an unresolved irritation between Canada and the US. Future oil and gas drilling will likely become another contentious issue raised by a thawing North.

The Kyoto Accord and successive efforts to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will be an increasing source of irritation as climate change issues become more serious. The United States and Australia have already been castigated by world opinion for their failure to sign the accord. Canada is stinging from its failure to comply with its committed targets. Censure and even economic boycotts could result when the emissions from some countries are believed to be jeopardizing the security of others. What will be the response of America, England, Italy, Holland or Thailand should they blame uncontrolled Chinese or Indian GHGs for raising ocean levels that threaten the flooding of such cities as New York, London, Venice, Amsterdam and Bangkok? At what point will the international community feel compelled to take firm measures against Brazil or Indonesia for destroying the tropical forests that are crucial in regulating the world's climate? When will nations interpret environmental damage as acts of terrorism against their sovereign interests?

The Nobel Committee now recognizes that the planet's environment is becoming a significant element in the quest for world peace.