Global climate change is a paramount threat to the world, its leaders and the citizens alike, affecting the planet in a multitude of obvious ways. Rising air temperatures are accompanied by other problems such as rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, the melting of polar ice caps, etc. All of these issues threaten the earth’s ability to sustain all life, let alone human life. As the late Stephen Hawking famously stated in 2017, humans have only 100 years to leave the planet in order to save the human race. While the full destruction of the planet and its ability to sustain life is still years away by Hawking’s prediction, trends suggest that climate change has already posed a deep threat to international security by destabilizing regions affected most and bringing them closer to conflict. This paper will analyze these trends and argue that global climate change is engaged in an indirect causal relationship with conflict as proven by several case studies that span the globe, particularly focusing on Africa, Central Asia, Central America, and the Middle East.
This paper will go through each case study from the listed regions individually. Within each case study report, the background of how climate change affects the region discussed will be stated first. Second, the methods used in each study will be explained in detail. At the end of each case study report, the nature of the indirect causal relationship between climate change and conflict, as it applies to each case study, will be revealed.
While climate change and its associated sub-issues like abrupt changes in weather patterns or ocean acidification may not directly start a war, their interaction with other risk drivers fuel the possibility for war. Alex Evans in his 2011 paper titled “Resource Scarcity, Climate Change and the Risk of Violent Conflict” published in the World Bank’s yearly World Development Report, suggests that climate change be identified as a “threat-multiplier” rather than a risk-driver (Evans p. 6). Evans essentially argues that climate change and its effects make other, even unrelated problems, considerably more treacherous to the stability of international security. Evans goes on to support his claims with substantial evidence.
In order to highlight the indirect nature of how climate change influences conflict, Evans cites a 2004 case study of sub-Saharan Africa. This case study explains how this type of indirect causal relationship can exist. The study was conducted by Edward Miguel of the University of California with Shankar Satyanath and Ernest Sergenti from New York University. The findings were later published in the August 2004 issue of the Journal of Political Economy in their paper titled “Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach. Miguel, Satyanath, and Sergenti state their aims early on: “in this paper, we use exogenous variation in rainfall as an instrumental variable for income growth in order to estimate the impact of economic growth on civil conflict” (Miguel et al. 726). To summarize, Miguel and his team in this study analyze the relationship between economic growth, as expressed by rainfall, and civil conflict in the region.
The findings of this study are truly staggering, proving that climate change can indirectly assist in causing conflict. Evans reports that Miguel and his teams’ research “found a strong causal relationship between lower economic growth (measured via rainfall) and increased conflict risk: a five percent decline in annual economic growth increased the risk of civil conflict the following year by more than one half” (Evans 7). From this, it is clear that irregular rainfall, a product of climate change, took part in destabilizing economic growth. Destabilizing economic growth, in turn, increased the propensity of armed civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa in 2004.
There is no doubt Miguel is correct in stating that the rainfall variable is exogenous in this model. Evans may agree with Miguel in this, but Evans argues that after seeing these findings, economic growth and conflict can be considered as endogenous to rainfall variation. More simply, rainfall variation in the model is not influenced by economic growth or armed conflict, but economic growth and armed conflict are influenced by rainfall variation. Thus rainfall variation, a product of climate change, also constitutes in a causal relationship with armed conflict but it serves as an indirect influencer to armed conflict in this model. The logic here is that if climate change influences changes in economic growth, and economic growth influences changes in the threat level of conflict, then climate change also influences changes in the threat level of conflict.
Evans concludes his discussion of this study by reporting that Miguel and his team found their results to be consistent across sub-Saharan Africa, even in the most stable regions of sub-Saharan Africa (Evans 7). Furthermore, they found that their results “resonated with previous studies that found economic variables to be more important determinants of civil war than political ‘grievances’” (Evans 7). Not only were the results were found to be representative of a much larger portion of sub-Saharan Africa than initially anticipated, but Miguel, Satyanath, and Sergenti also found that the instrumental variables used in their study, including rainfall, better predict the propensity for war than even political strife.
Another issue that stems from climate change that has potential to indirectly cause armed conflict between states is the reduction in water resources. Tensions are rising particularly rapidly when it comes to transboundary waterways. Central Asia is among the hardest-hit by this issue and a lot of its negative implications, possibly even intrastate armed conflict, are still yet to come. Stephen Harrison’s paper, Climate Change, Future Conflict, and the Role of Climate Science published in the Royal United Services Institute Journal places Kazakhstan and China in the crosshairs of this type of a potential crisis.
Being one of the more arid places on the planet, climate change again serves as a threat-multiplier and puts Central Asia’s water supply on a fast track to depletion. Harrison states that the rise in temperatures has decreased water supplies and stocks in irrigation systems, causing an “increase salinization of irrigated soils (reducing their fertility)” (Harrison 2005). While water supplies in arid regions are at risk of depletion, so too are food supplies due to decrease in the amount of fertile lands in these regions. Harrison goes on to explain that rising temperatures also decrease stores of water in mountainous regions through the melting of glacial fields and permafrost. This has caused states to capture more water from rivers fed by glacial and permafrost runoff (Harrison 2005). In the case of Kazakhstan, water is being extracted from rivers fed by melting glaciers and permafrost in the Tian Shan mountains that span across northwestern China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan (Harrison 2005). Harrison goes on to explain how the extraction of water from transboundary waterways has the potential to cause major disputes between the states that all make claims to these resources.
The stresses on Kazakhstan, in this regard, have been particularly formidable since the fall of the Soviet Union. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan actually made substantial economic growth, taking advantage of its significant mineral wealth and agricultural resources, in addition to the use of market-led reforms to the nation’s economy (Harrison 2005). This sudden change in economic structures, although beneficial to Kazakhstan, has resulted in greater vulnerability to climate change. Harrison states that “Associated with this economic liberalization has been a reduction in collaboration between the central Asian republics, especially in the fields of energy, environmental and resource planning” (Harrison 2005). This leaves Kazakhstan and other Central Asian nations dangerously unprepared to open diplomatic channels to determine how to navigate the effects of climate change in the region without resorting to armed conflict.
To make matters worse, the effects of climate change in Kazakhstan are a particular strain on Almaty Province, Kazakhstan’s economic center. This southern region of Kazakhstan generates 20 percent of the country’s industrial production and around 30 percent of its agricultural production while serving as a home to 17 percent of Kazakhstan’s population (Harrison 2005). The primary source of water for the region, the Hi River, is shared by Kazakhstan and China, beginning in the Tian Shan mountains in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Province (Harrison 2005). It is clear that the integrity of this water source is of critical importance to Kazakh national security due to its status as the primary water source for the nation’s economic powerhouse. However, the integrity of this essential water source is largely left to be determined by China, as the upper portions of the Hi River are located within Chinese borders.
Chinese efforts to expand industry in Xinjiang pose further threat to Kazakh water security. In order to fuel this expansion, the Chinese government plans to draw 40 percent of the water required for the project, from transboundary waterways that flow into Kazakhstan. Here lies a potential cause for conflict in Central Asia (Harrison 2005). While China needs the water to fuel industrial expansion, Kazakhstan needs the water for survival. This puts the two states at great odds with each other.
A third way that climate change indirectly influences armed conflict, is through influencing increases in migration. Migratory conflict is already in effect, although many may not recognize that climate change is to blame for its rise in some cases. Michael Klare, a professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, wrote a paper in 2007 that addresses how climate change further threatens international security and how climate change incites mass migration, leading to environmental migratory conflict (Klare 2007). What is particularly fascinating about this article, is that Klare offers an extremely heated issue in European and American domestic politics to explain this phenomenon. In the article, Klare argues that violence and harsh rhetoric against immigrants in the United States are examples of migratory conflict influenced by the effects of climate change (Klare 2007). Klare’s claims are illustrated by a 2012 study conducted in Mexico by experts from the University of Colorado.
Like sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, water shortages prove to be among the most apparent effects of climate change in Central America. Extreme droughts ensue stemming from climate change’s enhancement of the effects of El Niño weather patterns in Central America (UN Mexico Delegation). Raphael Nawrotzki, with the help of two of his colleagues, Fernando Riosmena and Lori Hunter, at the University of Colorado’s Institute of Behavioral Sciences published a paper that reports their findings in a study of how droughts in Mexico influence migration to the United States by analyzing Mexican census data. A key part of their argument here is that despite the fact that environmental changes such as droughts more typically cause domestic migration, people may feel more inclined to migrate internationally if their nation has a pre-existing history of international migration for other reasons (Nawrotzski et al. 132-133). Mexico and other nations in Central and South America reflect this history of being sources of U.S.-bound migrants.
An important statistic that Nawrotzki shares relate to the origins of migrants within Mexico is the fact that, “40% of Mexico’s U.S.-bound migrants in 2001-2006 came from places with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants” (Nowrotski et al. 133). Droughts have been catastrophic to the economy and people’s of rural Mexico through reducing the nation’s agricultural output. This is largely due to the fact that Mexican farmers primarily rely on rains to water crops, considering “only 25% of Mexico’s 20 million hectares of cropland are irrigated” (Nawrotzki et al. 134). Although this is not to say that migration of Mexican citizens living in rural areas is solely caused by the effects of climate change, the effects of climate change have put enormous stress on these people and it is likely a primary driving force of migration.
Another method used in Nowrotski’s study was conducted by analyzing nationally representative data to model the crisis. Through careful examination of census data, the researchers construct a model showing that every 10% drop in annual crop yields encourages an added 2% of the Mexican population to emigrate from Mexico (Nawrotzki et al. 134). This national level data, paired with Nawrotzki’s use of smaller scale data paint a comprehensive picture of Mexico’s climate change-induced migration. From here it can be concluded that climate change has amplified El Niño weather events, causing extreme droughts across the nation, reducing Mexico’s annual crop yields, and putting further strain on the Mexican economy. All of this incentivizes Mexican citizens to migrate to the United States to seek better opportunities and seems to have increased anti-immigrant fervor in the U.S. electorate.
Klare’s paper foreshadows today’s political divides in the United States. Increases in immigration to the United States exacerbate anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States (Klare 2007). In addition, the rise of ultra-nationalism seen in the ideals of today’s alt-right can be attributed to increases in immigration to the U.S. (Klare 2007). Conflict between these groups and immigrants is directly influenced by the increases in immigration, and the increases in immigration are partially attributed to the effects of climate change in Central America. Again, it is clear that climate change is engaged in an indirect causal relationship with conflict.
Today in the middle east climate change serves again as a threat multiplier of terrorism, an obvious risk-driver of conflict. One way this can transpire, as Stephen Harrison suggests, concerns pre-existing terrorist organizations. In areas of East Africa, the Middle East, and Central and East Asia, a substantial demographic of the population finds themselves in political and cultural opposition to the West (Harrison 2005). With that in consideration, Harrison states that “there exists the potential for such communities to regard the negative consequences of climate change as having been derived solely from the economic pathways which the West has followed” (Harrison 2005). While there is scientific evidence that suggests this reasoning carries some truth, this further puts the stability of international security at risk.
Another way climate change acts as a threat multiplier of terrorism, is through the priming of a region to serve as an incubator for terrorist groups. This scenario can be seen in Syria today. During the 2016 General Election cycle in the U.S., the former Governor of Maryland and democratic presidential candidate at the time, Martin O’Malley was criticized by American conservatives for drawing a connection between climate change and the rise of ISIS and the Syrian Civil War (Qiu 2015). Linda Qiu, a columnist for the Tampa Bay Times quotes the candidate in her September 2015 article that sought to fact check his claims:
One of the things that preceded the failure of the nation-state of Syria and the rise of ISIS was the effect of climate change and the mega-drought that affected that region, wiped out farmers, drove people to cities, created a humanitarian crisis (Martin O’Malley, Qiu 2015).
O’Malley argues that the effects of climate change, more specifically droughts, in Syria catalysed the destabilization of the region prior to the war even starting.
The former Maryland Governor’s claims in this issue carry substantial truth. Well after the initial Bloomberg interview, Linda Qiu asked an O’Malley campaign spokesperson to elaborate on where the candidate was getting this information. The spokesperson shared with Qiu that O’Malley was citing a March 2015 study published in a journal from the National Academy of Sciences (Qiu 2015). The study’s results found that droughts in the Levant region (Eastern Mediterranean) between 2006 and 2009 caused internal displacement of Syrians living in rural areas affected by the extreme droughts, “to Syrian cities already crowded with 1.5 million Iraqi refugees displaced by the Iraq War” (Qiu 2015). This mass migration of Syrians, in combination with the prior mass migration of Iraqis to Syria, put enormous strain on Syria and its people.
Again, climate change is in the role of exacerbating pre-existing issues, bringing the area closer to conflict. The increase in population of Syrian cities further inflamed issues surrounding unemployment, corruption, and the people’s discontent for the negligence of the al-Assad regime in combatting this issue (Qiu 2015). By 2011 these issues reached a critical point, and the Syrian Uprising ensued (Qiu 2015). In the turmoil, ISIS moved into Syria, further intensifying the conflict. Today the conflict still rages on, and the world is simply watching while this humanitarian crisis unfolds.
ISIS’s rise in Syria was only made possible by the destabilization of Syria in the Syrian Civil War. Although the study that Martin O’Malley does not explicitly mention ISIS at all, authors of the study told the Tampa Bay Times that “O’Malley’s extrapolation makes sense” (Qiu 2015). Considering this, it is concluded that extreme droughts between 2006 and 2009 caused mass migration to Syrian cities already at capacity, causing further unrest and eventually the Syrian Uprising and the introduction of ISIS in Syria, thus again proving the existence of an indirect-causal relationship between climate change and conflict.
Climate change to some, mostly those who fall under the realist school of thought, is a problem whose solution can be determined at a later date. However, after conducting extensive research, and analysis of case studies in Africa, Central Asia, Central America and the Middle East, one must conclude that climate change is helping to incite conflicts around the world, and there is more criticality to addressing climate change than the realist school assumes. In the case of Africa, we see how the effects of climate change can destabilize economies leading to and threatening a greater degree of conflict. In Central Asia, climate change is depleting water stores resulting in a rise in tensions in the region. In Central America, the effects of climate change have displaced peoples causing mass migration to the United States, where anti-immigrant sentiment is pervasive, again increasing tensions. Lastly, in the case of the Middle East, climate change’s effects have created spawning grounds for terrorist groups, allowing these groups to have a more stable footing to wage terror in the region and abroad. These may just be a few of the channels in which climate change influences conflict, but these cases provide sufficient evidence that climate change is in an indirect causal relationship with conflict. Though climate change is not the only variable in the case studies identified in this paper, it serves as a “threat-multiplier” that must be addressed if people around the world want to lower the likelihood of conflict.