2023 was the hottest year on record. Climate change is rapidly changing the natural world and will soon also change the world order. Temperature increases may initially benefit some countries, making agriculture possible in previously barren lands. But what will ultimately determine the future balance of power is the degree of dependence on fossil fuels, argues Simon Dalby.

Record breaking weather events in numerous parts of the world in 2023 have made it clear that climate change is accelerating. Floods, droughts, heat waves and hurricanes demonstrated that repeated disruptions to agriculture, trade and production are to be expected in coming years. Sea ice in polar regions is receding, so too are glaciers in most parts of the world. The geographical patterns of the recent past are changing, and with them many aspects of human affairs, including agriculture, trade and finance.

An ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer, something that is coming into view, will offer new faster shipping routes from Asia to Europe. If political difficulties in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal restrict transit there, and climate change induced drought conditions in Panama continue to reduce transit through that canal too, then Arctic shipping routes may be useful in speeding at least summer trade across the world. Not surprisingly Asian trading nations are paying attention; shipping bureaus in Asia would be negligent if they didn’t consider this new faster way to get things from Shanghai to Hamburg. If Asian navies are surveying new routes there is no reason for alarm, at least not if you are a European consumer.

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If climate change accelerates, and fossil fuel consumption continues, then any new agricultural opportunities are likely to be short lived as growing areas continue to move.

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Warming is already changing agricultural possibilities. If wine grapes can be grown once again in England, and more northerly parts of Russia are now warm enough to grow grain, then new economic opportunities open up in these regions. This assumes that soils are suitable for such things and, much more importantly, that weather extremes, floods and droughts are infrequent enough for these new crop areas to flourish. But droughts, floods and heatwaves are already disrupting food production, only most obviously in Africa, and elsewhere in the record breaking year 2023, not least Brazil. This too is adding uncertainty to global food security. If climate change accelerates, and fossil fuel consumption continues, then any new agricultural opportunities are likely to be short lived as growing areas continue to move. Constant rapid adaptation in an increasingly disrupted climate system would involve numerous risky gambles with what crop to plant each season.

However, these most obvious climate change implications for world power may not be the most important. New sea routes may get attention but the larger issues of how (and if) the world transitions away from energy systems based on combustion, will have much more profound geopolitical implications. In the aftermath of COP 28 in Dubai in late 2023 at least one crucial point about global politics has been clarified. Climate change is now an important part of how world order is being recalibrated. The focus on fossil fuels as the problem to be tackled explicitly suggests realignments in world politics that may shift the relative balance of power among states. But it all depends on how policy responses play out, and the various competing industries within states that shape not just production processes, but ultimately politics.

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