Peace Research Institute Oslo

Climate Wars?Climate Variability and Civil War in Africa

Halvard Buhaug

Summer School on Environmental Conflicts and JusticeAutonomous University of Barcelona11 July 2011

• Motivation• Recent trends in climate and conflict• Causal framework• Empirical evidence• A future research agenda• Conclusion

Plan of action

Drammen anno 2006

Drammen anno 2099?

Note: Data on armed conflicts from UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Database (www.prio.no/cscw/datasets)

Armed conflict

• At least two organized parties• At least one state government• At least 25 battle deaths per year

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Casualties of armed conflict

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Note: Data on conflict casualties from PRIO Battle Deaths Dataset v.3 (www.prio.no/cscw/datasets)

• Demise of superpower rivalry

• Spread of democracy, human rights

• Poverty alleviation

• Increasing economic interdependence

• Increasing international activism

• Nuclear deterrence

Explaining the decline of war

• Abrupt climate change may lead humanity into “constant battles for diminishing resources” (Schwartz & Randall, 2003)

• Climate change is an “all-encompassing threat” to human health, to global food supply, and to peace and security (Annan, 2006)

• Climate change “may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources”, resulting in “increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states” (Mjøs, 2007)

• “What makes wars start? Fights over water. Changing patterns of rainfall. Fights over food production, land use” (Beckett, 2007)

• “Climate change, if left unchecked, could result in violent conflict” (Obama, 2009)

All refer to security in a classic, narrow sense

Will climate change revert the trend?

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Note: Temperature statistics expressed as deviation from global mean, 1951–80. Data from NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), Columbia University (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp)

Global warming

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Note: Sea-level statistics with January 1946 as baseline. Data from Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) database, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, UK (www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/)

Sea level rise

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Frequency

Note: Disaster data from the EM-DAT database, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED), Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels (www.em-dat.net)

Climatic natural disasters

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Temperature deviation

Frequency

of

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Paradox or disaster waiting to happen?

Mapping contemporary civil wars

• Most agree that climate is unlikely to affect armed conflict directly

• But climate anomalies/change may affect motives and/or opportunity for violent conflict in certain contexts

• “Threat multiplier” and “ingenuity gap”: Increased conflict risk in societies unable to cope with/adapt to changing environments

• Some typical country characteristics:– Poor

– Poorly developed property rights

– Large marginalized populations

– Dependence on rain for income and food security

– History of violence

– Bad neighborhood

How climate might affect armed conflict

Political instability

Economic instability

Social fragmentati

on

Inappropriate response

Migration

Sea-level rise

Increasing

resource scarcity

More extreme weather events

Reduction in

livelihood

Armed conflic

t

“Tracing the consequences of consequences…”

Security in a wide sense

Security in a narrow sense

Causal flow chart

Most empirical research focuses on Africa

• 1/3 of African people live in drought-prone regions

• Only 4% of arable land in SSA is irrigated

• Large agricultural sector, subsistence economies

• Home to almost half of all active armed conflicts

• Global warming is likely to lead to a drying of northern and southern Africa; East Africa might get more rain

General acceptance that Africa will be affected by future global warming first and most severely

Bruke et al. (PNAS 2009)

Trends in climate and conflict since 1960

End

Year

1971 1972 Legend 1973 -0.020 – 0.030 1974 1975 0.030 – 0.042 1976 1977 0.042 + 1978 1979 Bruke et al. Sample 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

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Sensitivity to time period

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Sensitivity to severity threshold

Marginal impact of climate

Buhaug (PNAS 2010)

• Comparative statistical work largely dismissive of a causal environment-conflict connection (e.g., Political Geography 2007; Journal of Peace Research 2012)

• Case-based environmental security literature in general more supportive but does not cover a random selection of cases

• Public debate dominated by policy actors, NGOs, and think-tanks; most reports motivated by idiographic evidence

policy debate has run ahead of scientific evidence base

social sciences less successful than the natural sciences in informing policy makers

Empirical evidence: Summary

• Explore effect of climate on other forms of violent conflict/interaction– Intercommunal disputes– One-sided violence– Urban riots– Terrorism– Cooperation!

• Explore consequences of environmental change for conflict dynamics

• Get better data on (local) environmental vulnerability

• Obtain a better knowledge of drivers and patterns of migration

• Identify possible thresholds and non-linear effects

• Invest in research on long-term effects of environmental variability and change

Research priorities

• Climate change is a major challenge

• Climate change is a security issue

• Little evidence that climate anomalies increase civil war risk

• Little systematic research on other forms of violence

• Little systematic research on long-term implications of climate anomalies and change

• Societal tipping-point behavior not well understood

More research needed!

Concluding remarks

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Thank you for your patience

For more info, see:

www.prio.no/cscw/sicc

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