Prince Charles: climate change 'major reason' for war in Syria

Prince Charles has suggested that climate change was indirectly responsible for the Syrian civil war, linking the rise of Islamic State and similar violent factions to the country's six-year drought.

In an exclusive interview with Sky News, the Prince of Wales appeared to connect the conflict in Syria, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says has killed more than 250,000 people, with the effects of climate change in the Middle East.

Talking to Rhiannon Mills ahead of COP21, the UN's climate summit, the Prince expressed concern that increasing scarcity of natural resources would lead to a corresponding increase in conflict.

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"There's very good evidence indeed that one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria, funnily enough, was a drought that lasted for about five or six years, which meant that huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land," he said.

A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March this year identified the prolonged drought as one of the factors that contributed to the Syrian conflict, reports Mashable. However, the study's authors stopped short of naming climate change the root cause of the violence.

"We would not say and did not even attempt to say that the uprising was caused by climate change," said the study's lead author, Colin Kelley.

Prince Charles's remarks provoked an immediate reaction, with his name quickly becoming a trending topic on Twitter. While many agreed with the Prince's observation, there were also questions about whether the Prince's political involvement is befitting of a future monarch.

Political commentator Andrew Pierce tweeted that Prince Charles should "stick to talking to his plants", while Reuters pointed out that this is not the first time the Prince has faced allegations of meddling in politics.

Charles also warned of "chaos" if the nations of the world fail to commit adequate resources to tackling climate change. "The difficulties in 2008 with the financial crash – that was a banking crisis. But we're now facing a real possibility of nature's bank going bust," he said. The heir to the throne, who has frequently been outspoken on environmental issues, went on to brand the 2009 COP15 summit in Copenhagen a "disaster".