THE SACKLER FOUNDATION HAS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED THE UNDERLYING NATINAL ACADEMY & ROYAL SOCIETY RESEARCH
CBS NEWS
How climate change helped
strengthen the Taliban
BY CARA KORTE
/ CBS NEWS
Rural Afghanistan has been rocked by climate change. The past three decades have brought floods and drought that have destroyed crops and left people hungry.
And the Taliban — likely without knowing climate change was the cause — has taken advantage of that pain…
The country is the world's leading supplier of opium poppies.
Not only has the Taliban made billions from their illicit drug trade, but... Poppy cultivation is most abundant in the south of the country, where drought in part fueled by climate change has been the most severe and the Taliban is most popular.
Rapid human-caused climate change is intimately entwined with
the health and functioning of the biosphere. It interacts with other
pressures on ecosystems, including degradation, defaunation and
fragmentation…This theme issue explores the latest science and
provides novel perspectives on these themes
