Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Climate & Conflict

Climate & Conflict: The interplay between climate and conflict has received increasing attention from researchers and policymakers over the last two decades. There is significant overlap between countries most affected by climate change and those most at risk of violent conflict. Evidence for adverse effects of climate factors on conflict exists predominantly for internal conflict. Despite this, climate factors are currently thought to play only a minor role as a direct cause or trigger of conflict compared to other risk factors. However, they can influence conflicts indirectly by impacting those factors, for example by exacerbate existing tensions and grievances and lowering the opportunity costs of conflict. In doing so, climate factors may affect the duration and intensity of existing conflicts stronger than the risk of conflict onset. Climate change in the context of conflict is therefore considered a potential “threat multiplier” first and foremost….What is the relation between climate change and violent conflicts? Which role do socio-economic scope conditions play in exacerbating climate impact? How can we allow analysts and policymaker to make better decisions — based on heterogenous, multi-faceted information sources?…This section shows a global overview of a selected set of hotspot regions, which are currently strongly affected by climate change, being especially vulnerable from unfavorable socio-economic scope conditions, and/or suffering from ongoing conflicts. In this map, worldwide scores in each of these three topics were calculated on a one-degree latitude-longitude grid. Click/tap a region to reveal detailed scores. Or, choose one of the three factors at the bottom of the map, in order to view them in isolation. The data for this map combines different information sources and levels of analysis:

  • The grid scores for the three dimensions (Climate Impact, Scope Conditions and Conflict) were developed in cooperation with the Center for Crisis Early Warning. They combine publicly available data sources such as ACLED, the World Bank and V-Dem with a custom analysis provided by Verisk Maplecroft.
  • The hotspot shapes and labels were defined based on existing analysis in the context of the Climate Diplomacy project.
  • The hotspot scores present an aggregation of the grid scores for the contained area. Here, scores were normalized across dimensions, so that the three dimensions are presented with comparable overall value distributions across hotspots.
  • Find more details in our technical documentation.”

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.