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Does Climate Change Increase Risk of Conflict?


  • Climate change may increase the likelihood of conflict across the world by potentially intensifying societal problems that could trigger new conflicts and/or exacerbate existing conflicts.
  • Because climate change affects everyone, conflict can easily spill over to other regions by disrupting nearby economies, further limiting resource supplies, exacerbating ethnic tensions, and creating a climate of violence.
  • The extent to which climate change affects conflict likelihood depends on the socioeconomic and political context of each region.
  • Understanding a new side of climate change is relevant to government decision-making and will help build greater public and political will for climate action.

When we think about climate change’s impacts, we often think about its more immediate effects, such as how it damages the environment. It’s important to also reflect on how climate change affects world stability, such as by increasing the likelihood of both armed and unarmed conflict. By itself, climate change may not cause conflict, but climate change could indirectly increase the risk of conflict. Climate change is a threat multiplier, exacerbating other societal problems that together could trigger new conflicts and/or exacerbate existing conflicts.

By exacerbating food and water insecurity, climate change leads to a loss of income for a broad segment of the population, especially those in agriculturally-dependent countries.Buhaug et al., continued in endnote 1 For instance, crop yields might substantially decrease, limiting food supply and income. With less income, people will be more motivated to acquire and defend resources, and they will have less to lose by rioting and rebelling.Harari and La Ferrara; Vestby; Scheffran et al.; Wischnath and Buhaug. By increasing the likelihood and severity of disease outbreaks, famine, and other structural violence, climate change exacerbates existing inequalities, which may lead to conflicts and rioting.Buhaug et al. This cycle is perpetuated by a feedback loop: climate change makes societies more vulnerable to structural violence, and this violence makes societies more vulnerable to environmental change, because they are less able to cope with climate change’s effects, such as extreme weather and resource scarcity.Scheffran et al., continued in endnote 4

Conflict also has a higher chance to spill over under greater strain from climate change. Conflict in one area disrupts the local economy, which hurts nearby economies. Local conflicts usually induce an inflow of arms trading and attract mercenaries, creating a climate of violence. Additionally, rebellion due to a set of grievances may induce emulation, leading groups nearby to rebel, especially if they have similar grievances.Harari and La Farrara Moreover, conflict itself as well as factors leading up to conflict may induce migration, such as refugee flows, which can cause conflicts by exacerbating resource scarcity or pre-existing ethnopolitical tensions.Scheffran et al. Less income in one area may force groups to migrate to other areas, which, due to spatial proximity, are likely to have scarce resources due to climate change.Haraari and la Farrara For instance, distress migration may lead to host-newcomer conflicts and/or identity conflicts in a new region, and these tensions may deteriorate economic conditions and promote more conflict.Salehyan, Idean, and Cullen Hendrix., “Climate Shocks and Political Violence.”; Buhaug et al. 

The extent to which climate change affects conflict risk, however, depends heavily on the sociopolitical and economic context of each region. For instance, a history of past conflict increases the likelihood of future conflict—even more so when the past conflict is climate-induced.Uexkull, Nina von, Mihai Croicu, Hanne Fjelde, and Halvard Buhaug., “Civil Conflict Sensitivity to Growing-Season Drought.” Weak and/or corrupt governments are permissive of greater violence. A corrupt government may resort to maldistribution during food shortages which would fuel greater grievances, or political elites may resort to violence to enforce environmentally harmful policies which, in turn, may be countered by violent resistance.Harrari and La Farrara 2018 

Additionally, different groups are affected differently by climate change. Groups with preexisting grievances—especially grievances related to ethnic discrimination or colonialist histories—are more likely to turn to violent conflict. Politically marginalized groups in lower socioeconomic brackets are less able to adapt to the effects of climate change and will thus have more grievances.Scheffran et al. Agricultural societies will also be more affected by drought, flooding, extreme weather, and irregular temperature and precipitation patterns because their economies are highly dependent on natural resources and ecological services.Vestby; Uexkull et al. This logic explains why workers in rural areas are more likely to rebel due to climate change than workers in urban areas.Vestby Similarly, we would expect areas more affected by these types of natural disasters to worry more about climate change. In line with these expectations, Yale Program on Climate Change Communication’s 2019 Opinion Maps show that residents in U.S. counties that are more affected by natural disasters tend to worry more about climate change’s impacts than residents in U.S. counties that are less affected by natural disasters.Marlon et al., “Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2019.” The Climate Opinion Factsheets confirm these results, showing that “Floridians in several coastal counties, [where storm surge and flooding from sea level rise is prevalent] especially around Miami, are more worried about global warming than those in other counties,” with similar findings in Texas and North Carolina.Talaty et al., “Are Hurricane-Prone States More Concerned about Climate Change?” Of course, there are many reasons why certain people may be more worried about climate change, but the correlation is nonetheless striking.

Understanding a new side of climate change is relevant to governmental decision-making and advocacy and will help build greater public and political will for climate action. Governments should consider climate change’s effects on international stability when passing policies on climate mitigation, humanitarian aid, and conflict prevention. Regardless of political affiliation, human and political security is important, and a changing climate has impacts on the environment, inequalities, and international stability that require urgent attention. Understanding how climate change affects broader issues provides insight into how the American public could view climate change: climate change not only directly impacts the environment and human health, but also increases the risk of conflict, which has adverse implications for human and political security.

 

Endnotes

1 Buhaug et al., “Climate Variability, Food Production Shocks, and Violent Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa.”; Harari, Mariaflavia, and Eliana La Ferrara., “Conflict, Climate, and Cells: A Disaggregated Analysis.”; Vestby, Jonas, “Climate Variability and Individual Motivations for Participating in Political Violence.”; Scheffran, Jürgen, Tobias Ide, and Janpeter Schilling, “Violent Climate or Climate of Violence? Concepts and Relations with Focus on Kenya and Sudan.”; Wischnath, Gerdis, and Halvard Buhaug, “Rice or Riots: On Food Production and Conflict Severity across India.”

For some concrete, researched examples, confer the following sources: Maystadt and Ecker, “Extreme Weather and Civil War: Does Drought Fuel Conflict in Somalia Through Livestock Price Shocks?”; Gleick, “Water, Drought, Climate Change, and Conflict in Syria.”; Okpara et al., “Conflicts about Water in Lake Chad: Are Environmental, Vulnerability and Security Issues Linked?”; and Shilling et al., ““On Raids and Relations: Climate Change, Pastoral Conflict, and Adaptation in North-Western Kenya.”

 

Bibliography

Buhaug, Halvard, Tor Benjaminsen, Espen Sjaastad, and Ole Magnus Theisen. “Climate Variability, Food Production Shocks, and Violent Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Environmental Research Letters 10 (December 22, 2015).

Gleick, P. “Water, Drought, Climate Change, and Conflict in Syria.” Weather, Climate, and Society 6 (July 2014): 331–340.

Harari, Mariaflavia, and Eliana La Ferrara. “Conflict, Climate, and Cells: A Disaggregated Analysis.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 100, no. 4 (October 2018): 594–608.

Marlon, Jennifer, Peter Howe, Matto Mildenberger, Anthony Leiserowitz, and Xinran Wang. “Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2019.” Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, September 17, 2019. https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/.

Maystadt, Jean-François, and Oliver Ecker. “Extreme Weather and Civil War: Does Drought Fuel Conflict in Somalia Through Livestock Price Shocks?” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 96, no. 4 (March 25, 2014): 1157–82. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aau010.

Okpara, Uche, Lindsay Stringer, Andrew Dougill, and Mohammed Bila. “Conflicts about Water in Lake Chad: Are Environmental, Vulnerability and Security Issues Linked?” Progress in Development Studies 15, no. 4 (October 1, 2015): 308–25.

Salehyan, Idean, and Cullen Hendrix. “Climate Shocks and Political Violence.” Global Environmental Change 28 (September 2014): 239–50.

Scheffran, Jürgen, Tobias Ide, and Janpeter Schilling. “Violent Climate or Climate of Violence? Concepts and Relations with Focus on Kenya and Sudan.” The International Journal of Human Rights, Climate change, environmental violence and genocide, 18, no. 3 (2014): 369–90.

Shilling, Janpeter, Moses Akuno, Jürgen Scheffran, and Thomas Weinzierl. “On Raids and Relations: Climate Change, Pastoral Conflict, and Adaptation in North-Western Kenya.” In Conflict-Sensitive Adaptation to Climate Change in Africa, edited by Urmilla Bob and Salomé Bronkhorst, 347. Climate Diplomacy Series. BWV Verlag, 2014.

Talaty, Urvi, Peter Howe, Matto Mildenberger, Jennifer Marlon, and Anthony Leiserowitz. “Are Hurricane-Prone States More Concerned about Climate Change?,” July 24, 2020. https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/are-hurricane-prone-states-more-concerned-about-climate-change/.

Uexkull, Nina von, Mihai Croicu, Hanne Fjelde, and Halvard Buhaug. “Civil Conflict Sensitivity to Growing-Season Drought.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 44 (October 17, 2016): 12391–96.

Vestby, Jonas. “Climate Variability and Individual Motivations for Participating in Political Violence.” Global Environmental Change 56 (May 2019): 114–23.

Wischnath, Gerdis, and Halvard Buhaug. “Rice or Riots: On Food Production and Conflict Severity across India.” Political Geography 43 (2014): 6–15.