A climate of conflict: the links between climate change, peace and war
Climate change is upon us and its physical effects have started to unfold. That is the broad scientific consensus expressed in the Fourth Assessment Review of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. This report takes this finding as its starting point and looks at the social and human consequences that are likely to ensue - particularly the risks of conflict and instability.
Both sudden shocks and slow onset changes can increase the risk of violent conflict in unstable states because they lack the capacity to respond, adapt and recover. It is likely that the most common way of thinking about how to respond to these problems is through huge humanitarian relief efforts, since such events and the response to them get a great deal of news coverage. But there is a growing awareness that what is really needed is for communities and countries to prepare against sudden shocks, to build their resilience and their adaptive capacity. Where that is possible, as we argue in chapter 3 of this report, communities will not only be better prepared against potential disasters such as floods, but they will, in consequence, also be reducing the risk of conflicts erupting, getting out of control and escalating to violence. Seen in this light, adaptation to the effects of climate change can be a part of peacebuilding and peacebuilding is a way of increasing adaptive capacity. In the medium to long term, peacebuilding will also increase unstable states’ capacities for mitigation.