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A Climate of War :
The Links Between Climate Change and Conflict

A Concept Paper for a possible International Peace Bureau Publication 2007.

“The majority of the United Nations' work still focuses on preventing and ending conflict, but the danger posed by war to all of humanity and to our planet is at least matched by the climate crisis and global warming… [the effects of climate change are] likely to become a major driver of war and conflict.”

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon. March 1, 2007.

1. The Evolution of the Environmental Security Debate

From the deleterious effects of defoliants in the Vietnam War through the Nuclear Winter Scenario of the Cold War to the still largely uncatalogued effects of depleted uranium munitions, the negative environmental effects of militaries and wars have long been recognised. It is only since the 1990s, however, that links in the other direction, between environmental stress and insecurity, have begun to be clearly articulated. Since that time there has been a growing consensus that environmental problems can cause, exacerbate and contribute to conflict. Early work in the field focussed on resources, and thus on examples such as deforestation in the Ethiopian Highlands, the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights and pressure on agricultural capacity in Rwanda, Honduras and El Salvador. Later work has looked at the issue of environmental refugees and internally displaced persons and their contribution to political instability and conflict. It is only very recently, however, that the focus has turned to Climate Change and recognition that its effects pose a major threat in the realm of both traditional and human security. It is the purpose of this first section to map out the evolution in thinking on environmental security and thus bring the reader up to date with the current position of the debate.

2. Likely Impacts of Climate Change

In the early 1990s it was thought that the impacts of Climate Change would be felt primarily in the temperate regions of the world – generally those best-equipped to deal with the effects. In addition, it was believed that the impacts would be felt slowly, giving the world time to adjust. It is now understood, both that the effects of Climate Change may be felt very rapidly, and that already vulnerable parts of the globe – tropical and equatorial zones – will bear a large proportion of the effects. In this section we will briefly discuss the nature of a number of Climate Change effects with particular relevance to future conflict such as desertification, changing rainfall patterns, sea level rises and increased storm intensity. We will continue by discussing the likelihood of these effects occurring under a number of different climate scenarios.

3. Climate Change and Conflict

a. Displacement of People (*)

The third and major part of the study will be divided into two sections of equal size: Displacement of People and Pressure on Resources. In the first section we will examine the links between flows of displaced people and conflict. While it is true that only a small proportion of total numbers of displaced people (both refugees and IDPs) are directly involved in violence there are, however, important links between the displacement of people and conflict. Those we will discuss here include: the spread of arms, of combatants and of ideologies as well as the way in which the large-scale displacement of people can contribute to overall instability by altering the ethnic balance within states and increasing competition for scarce resources. We will look at two case studies here. The first of these will focus on the potential for intrastate violence and the second on interstate conflict.

b. Resources

This second section will examine the impact of the different Climate Change scenarios discussed in part two on three key resource areas: Energy, Food Security and Water.

Energy :
We will discuss factors like the vulnerability of oil and gas supply networks and the way in which increased instability in oil producing regions could result in both a reduction in total supply as well as an increase in supply side inelasticity. We will look at the way in which resulting anxieties over access to supply may lead (and are already leading) to increased tensions and conflict. This is true of both inter and intrastate conflict. We will thus examine the potential for conflict within resource-rich states such as Nigeria and Venezuela as well as that between major states over resource-rich regions such as Central Asia and the Middle East.

Food Security :
We intend to look at factors such as projected reductions in available arable land as well as the increased instability of agricultural yields as patterns of rain and drought both change and become more irregular. We will then link these projected outcomes to conflict-causing factors such as inequality, resource scarcity, famine and national and regional instability. Many parts of Africa are obvious candidates for a case study here, as is much of the Mediterranean basin.

Water Security :
We will look at three projected effects of climate change: the reduction in total flows in some water catchment areas, the increasingly unpredictable flows in others as well as the effects of saline contamination on underground water-bearing strata. As with the sections above, we feel it would be interesting to link this discussion to specific examples, such as the fragility of agreements governing water supply in the Mekong, the Jordan or the Tigris river basins and the potential for future conflict.

4. Policy Responses

While it is especially difficult in this field to make precise predictions, we intend here to map out several possible outcomes based on the Climate Change scenarios discussed in section two, and to point to the main policy implications. It is not our intention to duplicate any of the work done by the many scholars already working in the field; rather we wish to draw out the broad implications of the issue both for decision-makers and for civil society campaigners.

We will consider in particular the environmental impact of the military sector itself, and the costs of tackling Climate Change. Given the huge, and rising, levels of global military spending devoted to defence against threats of low or remote probability, the much higher likelihood of extreme impacts from Climate Change justifies, as Ban Ki Moon points out above, at least an equivalent response. This is a response that will necessitate both a redefining of the role of the military and the diversion of resources away from war preparations and towards investment in effective responses to the climate challenge. We will argue that such a priority shift will make important contributions in both main areas of concern:

prevention : the whole range of measures that need to be taken, including urgent changes in consumption patterns, efficiency gains, and a host of other transformations that the growing political and scientific consensus now indicates we must implement.

mitigation : ways in which the possible impacts of Climate Change on conflict can be minimised – that is to say the ways in which both science and technology R & D and diplomatic/political measures such as treaty regimes can help affected states, communities and displaced people to adapt, to survive and, ultimately, to stay at peace.

Benjamin S. Buckland, 2 March 2007.

(*) By this term we refer both to refugees that cross international boundaries as well as to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

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