Climate crisis raises risk of conflict

(Eco Business, 18 Jun 2019) A warmer world will be more dangerous. As the thermometer rises, so does the risk of conflict and bloodshed in more vulnerable regions.

If the world warms by 4°C this century, the climate factor becomes more dangerous – five times more dangerous, according to new research, which predicts a 26 per cent increase in the risk of conflict, just because of climate change.

Even if the world sticks to a promise made in Paris in 2015, when 195 nations vowed to contain global warming to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, the impact of climate on the risk of armed conflict will double. The risk will rise to 13 per cent.

US researchers report in the journal Nature that they quizzed a pool of 11 experts on climate and conflict from a range of disciplines. There is no consensus on the mechanism that links a shift in average temperatures and ethnic bitterness, migration, violence and outright civil war within any single nation. But there is a simple conclusion: whatever the process, climate change raises the risk of conflict.

And the study comes just as the latest publication of the  Global Peace Index warns that 971 million people now live in areas with what is termed high or “very high climate change exposure”, and 400 million of these people already live in countries with “low levels of peacefulness.”

Making conflict likelier

The Global Peace Index issues the same warning: that climate change can indirectly increase the likelihood of violent conflict by affecting the resources available to citizens, to jobs and careers, and by undermining security and forcing migration.

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Eco Business, 18 Jun 2019: Climate crisis raises risk of conflict