This event will address the effect of climate change on political stability, international peace and conflict.

In the past decades, there has been a growing awareness of the security implications of climate change, not only relating to human, water and food security but also in matters of political instability, intra-state conflict, mass displacements of peoples, and so forth.

Studies have emphasised among other cases the link between the Arab spring movements, rising global food prices and droughts in major grain-producing nations; the role of climate change in fuelling intercommunal conflicts in Western Africa, the Sahel and Somalia; and ISIS’s capitalisation on extreme weather events in rural Iraqi communities in their recruitment strategy. Beyond the events we already witness, on-going climate-related phenomena raise security concerns. Two examples are the predicted internal displacement by 2050 of over 143 million people in the Global South which will apply further pressure on already fragile water and food resources and dynamics of increasing military and economic activity over the Arctic which are laying the groundwork for future tensions between great powers.

On the one hand, a growing number of institutes and research programmes have emerged to study the implications of these trends and climate dimensions have started to be integrated in UN Peacekeeping Operations. On the other, strong causal relations between climate change and conflict have been difficult to evidence and questions remain.

Does climate change actually cause conflict? What mechanisms contribute to the escalation from competition over scare resources, social tensions or protests to the use of military violence? How can we avoid such an outcome? How are climate dimensions presently integrated into states’ security policies?

You can find more about our speakers at the following links:

elliott.gwu.edu/marcus-king
www.prio.org/People/Person/?x=3497