Kerry: Climate Change Can Result in Violence

• 11.11.2015, 10:23
•  World

the US secretary of state, John Kerry declared that negative effects of climate change such as extreme drought are linked to deadly violence in countries such as Syria and Nigeria, and those still denying there's a problem are putting the entire planet at risk, Al Jazeera reports.

John Kerry addressed a group of about 2,000 people on Tuesday at the Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

"It's not a coincidence that immediately prior to the civil war in Syria the country experienced its worst drought on record, as many as 1.5 million people migrated from Syria's farms to its cities, intensifying the political unrest that was just beginning to royal and boil in the region," said Kerry. 

"In Nigeria, climate change didn't lead to the terrorist group Boko Haram, but the severe drought that the country suffered and the inability of the government to cope with it helped create the political and economic vitality that the militants exploited to seize villages, butcher teachers, and kidnap hundreds of school girls," he added.