A revolutionary climate?

Tommy Stadlen in Chinadialogue: When tomorrow’s historians assess the origins of the “Arab Spring” revolutions, a number of plausible causes will present themselves. Oppressive regimes, brave and unemployed populations, digital communications and Wikileaks – all are factors in uprisings that have spread across the Middle East and north Africa. Yet like almost every revolution in history, from the French Revolution to the fall of the Soviet Empire, the recent turmoil was catalysed by skyrocketing food prices. And in a worrying portent of climate change’s capacity to bring chaos, it is a flurry of extreme weather events which has caused this record surge in the price of food staples.

While few predicted the Arab Spring, there was plenty of warning. The last time world food prices spiked, in 2007 and 2008, violent riots broke out across the developing world, including in Egypt. Then in January this year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Food Price Index reached the highest levels on record, up 20% on last year. An FAO economist quietly voiced his concern that civic unrest was likely; the rest is, or will soon become, history.

Even more than corruption and repression, hunger drives people to revolt. It was hunger that literally and tragically lit the torch paper in Tunisia when a young salesman named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight after officials confiscated his supply of fruit and vegetables. The World Bank estimates that the average person living in a poor developing world city spends around 66% of his income on food. In years like 2008 and 2011, when the global supply of food will fail again to meet global demand, the effect on this typical citizen is magnified. High food prices reduce peoples’ ability to meet even basic needs.

Food has been central to the uprisings, stoking resentments related to other problems such as unemployment and authoritarianism. “Bring us sugar” was the chant in Algeria as demonstrators looted flour warehouses. Government responses to the protests are an indication of food’s critical role. Tunisia’s deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali tried and failed to appease the crowds with a promise to reduce food prices. In Yemen the government offered protestors a cap on food prices while the Algerian interior minister attempted to “turn the page” on food riots with cuts on sugar and cooking oil duties. In a similar move, the Iraqi government has delayed a planned increase in import tariffs....

Tunisians holding painted portrait of Mohammed Bouazizi, the artists having just put the finishing touches. Taken on Avenue Bourguiba, Tunis, in January 2011. Shot by cjb22, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license