Climate change a threat to the waning of war?

Transcription

1 Climate change a threat to the waning of war? WHO Collaborating Centre Course, Climate Change, Weather and Human Health Center for Environmental and Respiratory Research, University of Oulu, 29 October 2014 Nils Petter Gleditsch Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) & Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) nilspg@prio.no/

2 This talk The frequency and lethality of war is decreasing And other forms of violence follow the same trajectory The decline of war is not linear There will be many setbacks and challenges Climate change may be one of them But climate change is unlikely to reverse the trend towards less violence The main problem with climate change is the uncertainty

3 Not yet a peaceful world Since World War II we have experienced armed conflicts - in 155 different countries/territories - and with 548 different actors; states or insurgent movements This includes all conflicts with more than 25 battle deaths in a calendar year civilians as well as combatants internal as well as interstate conflicts In 2013, 33 conflicts in 25 countries

4 Armed conflicts

5 Battle-related deaths, Intrastate conflicts International conflicts

6 Armed conflicts

7 OK, but what about... Genocide/One-sided violence Terrorism Non-state conflict or homicide, torture, cruelty to women and children and even animals (Steven Pinker 2011)

8 Challenges to the decline of war The secular peace the clash of civilizations - conflict will be driven by religious clashes The unipolar peace - there will be new great power challenges to Western hegemony The unjust peace - arise ye domestic and international proletarians The unsustainable peace - conflict will be driven by environmental change

9 Challenges to the decline of war The secular peace the clash of civilizations - conflict will be driven by religious clashes The unipolar peace - there will be new great power challenges to Western hegemony The unjust peace - arise ye domestic and international proletarians The unsustainable peace - conflict will be driven by environmental change

10 Climate change a road to disaster? Darfur is the first of many climate wars (Ban Ki-Moon, ) There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement all of which will fuel more conflict for decades (President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, 10 December 2009) Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability and this is a major national security challenge for the US (CNA, 2007; statement by 11 retired US generals and admirals) The Independent 31 March 2014 heads a story on a new IPCC report : IPCC report paints bleak picture of war, famine and pestilence.

11 The Malthusian Model Population grows exponentially Food production grows linearly Positive checks (higher death rate): War, famine, and pestilence Negative checks (lower birth rate): Abortions, infanticide, birth control

12 The neo-malthusian model Population pressure & high resource consumption Resource depletion Resource scarcity Resource competition Armed conflict

13 Resource optimism Human ingenuity & technological innovation Substitution & adaptation Market pricing All of this drives economic growth Greater wealth less conflict Cooperation, not violence

14 A population explosion? ( )

15 Empirical studies of conflict Limited support for scarcity as a driver of conflict Conflicts are often over resources but they tend to be driven by greed or opportunity (raid cattle when they are fat and when the grass is tall enough to hide you) From water wars to water cooperation Other factors dominate (poverty, weak government, ethnic and religious discrimination, a history of conflict, contagion from neighboring conflicts)

16 Global warming and conflict

17 From climate change to conflict Sea-level rise migration conflict in host areas Drought resource scarcity local conflict Drought migration conflict in host areas Flooding, hurricanes and other disasters migration conflict Natural disasters lower state capacity rebel opportunity

18 Evidence: Rainfall Some studies show conflict in sub-saharan Africa increasing the year after a year with reduced rainfall In other studies, wetter years are more likely to see civil wars Rainfall variability generally has a significant effect on low-level forms of political conflict In a disaggregated analysis (as distinct from nation-level analyses), drought has no influence on civil conflict in Africa Precipitation changes in Africa cannot be predicted precisely from existing climate models Most studies focus on weather rather than climate

19 Evidence: Temperature A 2009 study argues that higher temperatures in SS Africa yield more conflict because of a negative impact on agriculture However, these results are disputed (control variables, model specification, extension of the time series) vigorous debate! A fear of global cooling in the early 1970s was seen by the CIA to produce drought, famine, and political unrest this preceded the current concern with global warming Indeed, wars were more common in China and Europe in cold periods over a 1000-year time period (but this may be less relevant for modern civilizations)

20 Evidence: Sea-level rise Global mean sea-level rise to 2100: cm (IPCC, 2007) 0.26 to 0.55 m or 0.52 to 0.98 (IPCC, 2013) Some smaller islands may be flooded 1.2 bill. live in coastal areas but the number of new people exposed annually is likely to be low People will have time to migrate and counter-measures will be undertaken Urbanization will make it more feasible to take protective measures, such as dikes

21 Evidence: Migration Migration is a likely result of climate change But no basis for 200 mill climate refugees? In any case, hundreds of millions of people will move anyway, as part of the modernization and urbanization processes Countries hosting many refugees have a greater risk of civil war But does this apply to climate refugees? Much migration (notably urbanization) is associated with greater wealth and lower conflict

22 Evidence: Natural disasters The number of hydro-meteorological natural disasters is increasing, more people affected but fewer people die Is the increase in the number of disasters due to global warming, better reporting, shifting settlements? Increase in cost, but more high-value objects insured Some studies show natural disasters leading to conflict, but mainly for geological disasters, which are unrelated to climate change More recent studies show that the probability of conflict is reduced in the wake of a disaster people unite in the face of adversity (the Aceh conflict in Indonesia after the tsunami is an example)

23 Countermeasures - most of the studies that link CC to conflict concern Africa - most plausible causal mechanism: increasing temperature and rainfall anomalies rainfed agriculture negatively affected slower or reversed economic development conflict - possible countermeasures (Paul Collier): - more effective irrigation - modified crops - industrialization - urbanization - over years, adaptation is probably feasible

24 The IPCC Five major assessments to date (1990, 1995, 2001, 2007, ) Little if anything about conflict in the first two reports From TAR (2001) three Working Group reports - WG I The science basis - WG II Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability - WG III Mitigation of climate change

25 The IPCC Five major assessments to date (1990, 1995, 2001, 2007, ) Little if anything about conflict in the first two reports From TAR (2001) three Working Group reports - WG I The science basis - WG II Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability - WG III Mitigation of climate change

26 IPCC TAR (2001) and AR4 (2007) Little peer-reviewed research Conflict dealt with in scattered chapters Inconsistencies, exaggerations, and weak documentation Sloganeering ( water wars and climate refugees ) Sometimes, a chain of citations continues to reproduce conventional wisdom or hearsay or ends up in a circular pattern No authors who specialized in conflict

27 IPCC AR5 WG II (2014) Human security chapter balanced and well-informed on conflict Collectively, the research does not indicate a strong positive relationship between warming and armed conflict Studies on rainfall deviations and civil war are inconclusive Chapters on Emergent risks and Africa offer somewhat more dramatic assessments Ch 18 on methods focuses on how robust the conclusions are and dismisses the link between climate change and conflict entirely (different studies disagree and most studies are about weather ) Thus, to some extent you can pick and choose!

28 More on IPCC AR5 WG II (2014) Human security chapter asserts that factors known to be associated with conflict (such as low development, weak government) are influenced by climate change However, if this mechanism was important, studies would have found a consistent link between climate change and conflict and, by the chapter s own summary, they do not Human security chapter tacitly assumes that the economic consequences of climate change are highly negative But the economics chapter of the WG II report concludes that the aggregate global economic effect is a loss of 0.2 2% of GDP i.e. less than a year s economic growth Problematic use of words like may in causal statements

29 Research priorities Look for possible at interactions between climate change and political and economic factors under what conditions will climate change make conflict more likely Look at a broader set of conflicts (one-sided, non-state, riots) Disaggregated studies of geo-referenced data More precise models of local effects of climate change Balance negative and positive effects (e.g. food) Take account of long-term adaptation Focus on countries with low adaptive capacity

30 Some conclusions Man-made climate change is a major challenge and can be seen as a security issue in a broad sense But so far there is not robust support for the thesis that climate change will lead to more armed conflict War is a public health problem, but other health effects of climate change are probably more important Other causes of conflict are better established Current conflicts (Syria, Ukraine) not caused by climate change Climate change is not a NEW cause of concern Countermeasures may also have adverse consequences Uncertainty is be our major problem and the main reason to combat climate change

31 THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

32 Readings The literature on climate change and conflict has expanded rapidly in recent years. In my presentation I have tried to sumarize this literature. This list of readings, however, is limited to work by myself and my colleagues at PRIO and NTNU. In order to find references to other parts of the literature, the references in our most recent publications should be helpful. However, at the head of the list, I include the most recent IPCC Assessment Report on the consequences of climate change: IPCC (2014a). Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. IPCC Working Group II Contribution to AR5. Geneva: IPCC, in press, on-line version available at Buhaug, Halvard (2010) Climate not to blame for African civil wars. PNAS 107(38): Buhaug, Halvard; Nils Petter Gleditsch & Ole Magnus Theisen (2008) Implications of climate change for armed conflict. Paper commissioned by the Social Dimensions of Climate Change program. Washington, DC: World Bank, Social Development Department, Buhaug, Halvard; Nils Petter Gleditsch & Ole Magnus Theisen (2010) Implications of climate change for armed conflict. In: Robin Mearns & Andy Norton (red.) Social Dimensions of Climate Change: Equity and Vulnerability in a Warming World. New Frontiers of Social Policy. Washington, DC: World Bank, [Shorter version of Buhaug et al., 2008.] Buhaug, Halvard; J. Nordkvelle, T. Bernauer, T. Böhmelt, M. Brzoska, J. W. Busby, A. Ciccone, H. Fjelde, E. Gartzke, N. P. Gleditsch, J. A. Goldstone, H. Hegre, H. Holtermann, V. Koubi, J. S. A. Link, P. M. Link, P. Lujala, J. O Loughlin, C. Raleigh, J. Scheffran, J. Schilling, T. G. Smith, O. M. Theisen, R. S. J. Tol, H. Urdal & N. von Uexkull (2014) One effect to rule them all? A comment on climate and conflict, Climatic Change, in press, DOI /s , available on-line. Gleditsch, Nils Petter, guest editor, Climate Change and Conflict, special issue of Journal of Peace Research 49(1). Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Whither the weather? Climate Change and Conflict, Journal of Peace Research 49(1): 4 9.

33 Readings (continued) Gleditsch, Nils Petter (2008) The liberal moment fifteen years on. International Studies Quarterly 52(4): Gleditsch, Nils Petter & Ragnhild Nordås (2014) Conflicting messages? The IPCC on conflict and human security. Political Geography, in press, DOI: /j.polgeo , published on-line 5 October at (open access). Gleditsch, Nils Petter; Peter Wallensteen, Mikael Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg & Håvard Strand (2002) Armed conflict : A new dataset. Journal of Peace Research 39(5): Lacina, Bethany; Nils Petter Gleditsch & Bruce Russett, (2006) The declining risk of death in battle. International Studies Quarterly 50(3): Nordås, Ragnhild & Nils Petter Gleditsch (guest editors) (2007) Climate Change & Conflict, special issue of Political Geography 26(6), august. Slettebak, Rune (2012) Don t blame the weather! Climate-related natural disasters and civil conflict. Journal of Peace Research 49(1): Theisen, Ole Magnus (2008) Blood and soil? Resource scarcity and internal armed conflict revisited. Journal of Peace Research 45(6): Theisen, Ole Magnus; Helge Holtermann & Halvard Buhaug ( ) Climate wars? Assessing the claim that drought breeds conflict. International Security 36(3): Theisen, Ole Magnus; Nils Petter Gleditsch & Halvard Buhaug, Is climate change a driver of armed conflict?, Climatic Change 117(3):