By Wilson VornDick
Climate change could be a net positive for stability in the South China Sea.
In a little more than a fortnight, over 25,000 delegates from almost 200 nations will arrive in Paris for the UN’s Climate Change Conference. The leaders of two of the globe’s largest emitters, China and the United States, will be on hand in Paris. Indeed, President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping’s commitment to take on climate change has already made global headlines — as have their nations’ respective maneuvers recently in the South China Sea. Both global powers have a keen interest in the territorial imbroglio engulfing the South China Sea, as do the other claimants (Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam). Likewise, each one also will be represented in Paris. The one thing that all of them agree on is the threat posed by climate change-induced sea-level rise (SLR), which is predicted to drown most of the features in the South China Sea and flood the sea’s surrounding low-lying littoral nations.
Climate change has already brought together a myriad of Chinese and American interests to work cooperatively on mitigation and adaptation solutions – could the same strategy be used for those nations that bound the South China Sea? Could tying together each nations’ respective interests on climate change and the South China Sea positively affect their relations?
SLR cooperation may offer a new avenue for confidence building among the claimants. This type of cooperation would be similar to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief cooperation that already exists in the region. At the very least, it opens the opportunity for the claimants to work constructively and cooperatively on an issue that affects their shared maritime commons.
Read the full story at The Diplomat