Climate Change and Deadly Conflict

Posted on 05/16/2011 @ 05:30 PM

Tags: Peaceful Prevention

I’m really excited about something that the Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict team has been working on for some time: a brand new FCNL flyer, “3 Ways that Climate Change Can Fuel Deadly Conflict… and 3 Things Congress Can Do to Prevent Climate Wars.” Last year, we released a policy brief called “Global Warming Heats Up Deadly Conflict,” to help explain to policymakers and others the complex ways that climate change can cause or exacerbate violent conflict. Now, you can use our flyer to educate others in your community about this increasingly important issue. Check out the flyer here.

I’m excited that FCNL is continuing to grow its work in this area because climate change and violent conflict will affect the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. But this work is also particularly timely, as researchers and policymakers alike are beginning to realize the potential magnitude of this problem, and to respond. When I attended the UN climate negotiations last year, I was disappointed that climate change’s impacts on conflict didn’t seem to be anywhere near the forefront of the discussions (you can read more about my experiences in an article that I wrote for Friends Journal). But I’ve also been heartened recently by conversations with officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development and informational events around town, such as this one at the Wilson Center that you can watch online.

At the Wilson Center Jeffrey Stark of the Foundation for Environmental Security and Stability, introduced the first of three case studies commissioned by USAID on the impacts of climate change and conflict in specific countries. As Cynthia Brady from the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation explained, the analyses that have been conducted of the climate-conflict relationship thus far has been largely conceptual and global in scale, while relatively little research has been done on the interaction between climate and conflict with other important factors such as local political, social, economic and cultural factors on a country or local level. USAID commissioned the studies to fill this knowledge gap, to inform their own country-level programming, and perhaps most importantly, to draw wider lessons that can be applied throughout all of USAID’s development work.

Having just finished up a great deal of research for FCNL’s flyer, I wholeheartedly agree with USAID’s assessment that relatively little scholarly information on this issue exists, and I am thrilled to hear that they are fully engaging this immensely complicated, and yet vital, issue.

The first of the three case studies, on Uganda’s cattle corridor and Karamoja areas, provides some particularly interesting findings. The pastoralists of these areas survive by herding their cattle to water and pasture based on weather cycles as well as prevailing climate conditions. The people of the area are also subject to episodes of violent conflict, due to a long-standing practice of cattle raiding and the circulation of loose weapons left over after the fall of the Idi Amin regime in 1979. In speaking with local people, the researchers learned that severe droughts that had once occurred on average once every five years are now occurring every two to three years, most likely due to the effects of climate change. The report finds that “poverty, deprivation, cattle raiding, food insecurity, and social disintegration are now intertwining with the effects of climate change in negative ways that have the potential to deepen conflict.”

As we continue to look for ways to work on this issue in Congress and the State Department and USAID, we hope that you’ll take some time to learn some more about this issue yourself and educate others in your meeting, church, or community, starting with this flyer.