Guest contributor
Tun Naung and Thet Wai
“Chaos is a ladder”, Littlefinger says to Lord Varys in the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. Before saying this, Varys talks to Littlefinger about how he serves only the realm.
Amusingly, Littlefinger responds by saying that the realm is just a lie which people told again and again until they forget it is a lie. Varys then argues that if this lie is removed, everything will fall into chaos.
Without denying it, Littlefinger simply whispers,“Chaos is a ladder”.
The 2021 military coup in Myanmar created this kind of chaos. Before that, Myanmar was living under a dominant political story of gradual democratic reform.
Under this narrative, explicitly confronting the military was considered outside the mainstream, and alternative visions of the country’s future were sidelined.
The 2021 coup radically altered this arrangement. Alongside the widespread anti-junta movement which far exceeded the military’s expectations, the collapse of the old political order created a political vacuum: a rare opportunity to rethink and reimagine the country’s future from the ground up.
Political discourse before and after the coup
The political discourse before the coup was different from the discourse today. Words like national reconciliation, peace, federalism, and constitutional reform were a part of this discourse.
These issues are often discussed in the mainstream political platforms such as the parliament, the media and the political conferences which prospered back then.
The importance and relevance of these issues sprang from the pre-coup political climate. To some extent, it reflected some of the problems of the country.
However, it did not reflect some of the most dire problems that require our serious attention. After the coup, there were radical shifts in the political landscape.
Consequently, there were changes in the political discourse too. The ideas of national reconciliation and constitutional reform seemed to be left dusted in the attic of history.
Terms like armed revolution, civil disobedience and political alliances came under the spotlight. These shifts in the discourse also reflected the changes in the nationwide political conditions. Still, the same problem continues to exist as before.
Some critical problems remain sidelined by the mainstream discourse. And one of those untouched problems is climate change.
Why climate change matters for Myanmar
Why does climate change matter and why should it be in our political discourse? Scientific data and recent natural disasters reveal the answer.
According to Germanwatch’s 2026 Global Climate Risk Index, Myanmar was the second most climate-affected country between 1995-2024.
During that period, Myanmar experienced 55 extreme events, resulting in close to 141,000 fatalities, more than nine million people affected and over $8.6 billion USD of economic damage.
The physical consequences are already reshaping everyday life. In dry zone regions of Magway and Sagaing, intensifying heatwaves are pushing temperatures to dangerous levels, adding a new wave of internal climate migration to an already devastating conflict-driven displacement crisis.
At the same time, Myanmar’s coastlines face the growing threat of rising sea levels, with projections warning of significant inundation risks by mid-century. Myanmar is not waiting for a climate crisis. It is already living in a serious one.
However, the prevailing assumption is that the current political situation leaves no room for it.
Since 2021, political battles have become so intense that compromise has become nearly impossible, even in the face of other shared national crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2025 Sagaing earthquake.
Political survival has taken priority over everything else.
Moreover, climate-related aspects are rarely taken seriously into consideration. Even when natural resource management is being discussed, it is more focused on the possible economic opportunities rather than on the environmental impacts.
This does not mean that the political actors are not aware of climate related problems though. Rather, they are making a conscious choice between political goals and climate change.
They, along with much of the general public, genuinely believe that democracy, freedom and federalism are far more important than climate change and that climate change is an issue that can wait.
This prevailing assumption needs to be questioned. Climate change should be a starting point for reimagining Myanmar’s future.
Because climate change will reshape the country’s underlying social, economic and political conditions, it cannot be treated as a technical issue which can be solved after the dust settles.
Rather, it should be treated as a fundamental factor in addressing the country’s core political questions. Modern Myanmar’s political debates have largely centered on the state structure, territory claims, and power distribution.
These issues remain at the heart of ongoing constitutional and political discussions today and they have traditionally been framed through the lens of historical grievances and ethnic identity.
Climate change must enter these debates as its impacts will alter the physical realities of the country: its coastlines, its river systems, its agricultural lands, and its habitable zones within which any future political systems must operate.
A power-sharing agreement that does not account for climate-driven displacement or a state structure designed without anticipating the impact of rising sea levels and intensifying storms, risks becoming irrelevant in the decades ahead.
Natural resource governance as an entry point
In the short-term, serious attention must be paid to natural resource governance. Competition for natural resources has been one of the major drivers of Myanmar’s conflicts.
Historically, the central government, dominated by the Burmese majority, extracted natural resources from ethnic territories for state coffers.
In response, ethnic groups took up armed struggle for equity and self-determination, aiming to protect their land. Nevertheless, financing those costly operations required them to rely on the very same extractive industries.
Over time, fighting over natural resources has become a major source of disputes even among the ethnic groups. At the same time, excessive reliance on extraction causes serious damage to the environment.
As these industries push beyond the limits of ecological recovery, they pave the way for deforestation, soil erosion, river sedimentation and the destruction of watersheds, threatening the very ecological foundation of the country.
Moreover, this environmental destruction does not stop at Myanmar’s borders. Unregulated mining operations in Shan and Kachin states, mostly run by Chinese companies, have been sending toxic runoff into Thailand, contaminating the Kok, Sai, and Ruak rivers in the Golden Triangle region.
Satellite data has identified 513 rare earth mining sites across Myanmar’s major river tributaries, with the pollution already causing an estimated $40 million USD in losses to farming, fishing, and tourism communities in Thailand’s Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces.
This transboundary harm creates regional tension at a time when Myanmar’s political actors need goodwill and support from neighbouring countries.
The current model is therefore not only environmentally damaging, it is politically self-defeating. The cost of armed struggle has tempted armed groups to rely excessively on extraction as a primary revenue source.
But this risks weakening the very communities they claim to protect and eroding the ecological foundations upon which any future settlement must rest.
For these reasons, crafting a natural resource governance model that operates within ecological limits by recognising the finite nature of forests, rivers, and mineral deposits becomes a political necessity.
Alongside this, any governance framework must incorporate environmental and social impact assessments for extractive projects.
This would give local communities a meaningful voice before projects begin, protect neighbouring countries from transboundary harm, and build the environmental credibility to secure regional and international support.
Therefore, rethinking climate change must begin with constructing a natural resource governance model that guarantees a sustainable environment and produces responsible political actors.
Chaos as a ladder
The 2021 coup created chaos but it also opened up a window to generate alternative visions for the country. The post-coup political landscape paved the way for new ideas and considerations, yet climate change is still left out of the political discourse.
Amidst the intense political struggle, it is understandable that climate change is widely regarded as an issue to be dealt with later. Nonetheless, scientific and historic data suggest otherwise, revealing its indispensability in future political arrangement.
Given this condition, natural resource governance presents itself as an entry point to prepare for the climate-resilient political structures. In short, chaos can be used as an opportunity to create a more inclusive political agenda that was almost unapproachable before.
Tun Naung is a student studying political economy and Thet Wai is a student studying political science.
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