To say that climate change is the sole cause of conflict is to say something improper. In fact, there are always other factors that can contribute to the erosion of violence, such as political, economic, and social factors. However, the impacts of climate change might increase the risk of conflict: extreme weather conditions and related disasters can damage economies following a diminishing resources availability and intensify inequalities among social groups.
Therefore, changes in the environment are not a direct cause of conflict, but rather indirect: how a government manages the impacts of climate vulnerability makes the difference regarding the eruption of a conflict; according to Kouby (2019) (1), “climate change could become a major contributing factor to conflicts by exacerbating the scarcity of important natural resources, such as freshwater, and by triggering mass population dislocations (migration) due to extreme weather events, such as droughts and desertification, as well as rising sea levels”. Hence, it is possible to affirm that climate change is a “threat multiplier” given the fact that it exacerbates already existing problems. As a matter of facts, the probability of eruption of an armed conflict is more concrete when environmental scarcity simultaneously boosts grievances and, therefore the “opportunity” for collective violence.
The correlation between climate change and conflict is not new. In fact, there have already been numerous conflicts in the past, long before the issue of climate change became so pressing and urgent, that have been triggered precisely by the scarcity of natural resources. This scarcity is obviously the consequence of exacerbated climatic conditions in these areas, which has led to a significant rise in temperatures, experiencing heat waves and generating droughts. Among these, we can mention two very important ones: the conflict in Darfur, which broke out in 2003, and the conflict in Syria, which has been going on for almost twelve years now. Clearly, climate change-related causes that led to the outbreak of armed confrontation are not the only ones. One must always bear in mind that there are always multiple factors that contribute to the outbreak of a conflict.
Hence, it is important to highlight that conflict is not always the necessary outcome when there is an environmental crisis; it depends on the context: conflict might erupt if other conditions are met, such as political, economic and social grievances and the government is unable or unwilling to tackle the situation; in fact, environmental crises may be exploited or entirely fabricated for political and economic gain: governments may want the population to starve in order to remove certain ethnic groups from specific areas; this is what happened in Sudan: studies have shown that the environmental crisis was perpetuated and exploited by national and local elites for political, economic and military advantage (Keen, 1994) (2). However, a different outcome might be cooperation: scholars, such as Alex de Waal (3), are convinced that not necessarily future wars will be caused solely by environmental changes; in fact, studies show that resource scarcities are more incline to lead to cooperation more frequently than conflict.
However, as the world gets warmer, climate risk plays an increasingly central role in many of today’s conflicts. Most of the risks related to climate security revolve around water. In fact, climate change will continue to threaten the global water supply in the coming decades. It is now inevitable, if concrete actions are not found and implemented immediately, that parts of the world will experience a more significant decrease in water supply, often associated with droughts that will last for many years and an uncontrollable rise in temperatures. Changes in water availability often manifest themselves in extreme forms, such as prolonged dry seasons followed by violent and extreme rainfall causing floods and tsunamis. Extreme climate volatility often ruins livelihoods, which clearly can exacerbate conflicts (4).
There are no suggestions other than those concerning the action of the international community, which must render the decisions and strategies adopted in international fora such as the so-called “Conferences of the Parties” (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and not make promises that are, every year, not kept, with the consequence that environmental conditions get worse and worse. Not only is it crucial to make concrete what is decided at the international level, but governments must also intervene by mitigating the grievances before they escalate into armed confrontation. Even wars themselves cause damage to the environment (as well as, of course, to people).
Arguably, as mentioned before, environmental cooperation is resolving local conflicts around the world, caused in part by global warming. Environmental peacebuilding could be critical in intervening where environmental issues may lead to the outbreak of an armed conflict. Indeed, through environmental peacebuilding, there are manners in which environmental issues can be harnessed to prevent, reduce, and possibly resolve conflicts. This may mean ensuring access to farmland for ex-combatants who might otherwise return to violence, to rebuilding the rule of law after a conflict by forming a judiciary composed of judges to decide resolutions to environmental disputes (5).
At the heart of it all, however, environmental peacekeeping is based on the idea that if warring parties share concerns about the environment and resources, this could be used in the opposite direction, that is, to be a way to build trust between them, creating a prospect of cooperation for environmental protection of the area in which the parties are commonly interested.
There have also been successful cases where tensions due to the hoarding of scarce natural resources were mitigated before they escalated into armed conflict like Senegal, or western Nepal, where the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and its local partners have helped calm inter-communal tensions over natural resources, there is an array of less equivocal outcomes. Another example along these lines, although the issue has not been entirely resolved, is Liberia, where peacebuilders helped to revamp the forestry sector in the hope of preserving the woodland, pacifying sometimes violent land disputes, and preventing logging from fueling new conflicts (5).
As with climate action, environmental peacebuilding can mean the absence of additional damage, and so success sometimes isn’t very visible, but what is important is that progress can be made in that direction.
References:
- Kouby, V. (2019), “Climate Change and Conflict”. Annual Review of Political Science, p. 344
- Keen, D. (1994), “The Benefits of famine: a political economy of famine and relief in southwestern Sudan, 1983-1989”. Princeton: Princeton University Press
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
