How climate change is contributing to global unrest

The turn of the new year has not been without bloodshed across the world, as a new global crisis seems to emerge every day. The war between Israel and Hamas has reached its sixth month, a series of coup attempts across six African countries have left thousands dead and millions displaced, and the war in Ukraine does not appear to be concluding anytime soon. 

While the cause of rising global unrest can be attributed to numerous factors, such as Covid-19 blowback and worldwide economic inequality, some experts are pointing to an unexpected culprit: climate change. "Climate change may not be directly causing political disruptions, but it is pressuring already fragile systems," David Wallace-Wells said for The New York Times. This may be especially true in Africa; in the continent's Sahel region — where all of the African coups have been located — the United Nations has previously warned that "countries in the Sahel risk decades of armed conflict and displacement exacerbated by rising temperatures." The region is undergoing a "climate emergency [that] will further imperil Sahelian communities as devastating floods, droughts and heatwaves decimate access to water, food and livelihoods, and amplify the risk of conflict," the U.N. said. 

But Africa is not alone in being at risk of increased violence due to climate change. The phenomenon is undoubtedly a global problem, and the "world as a whole is a more violent place than it has been for at least 30 years," Wallace-Wells said. What specific environmental factors are contributing to world conflicts, and what evidence is there for these causes?

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How is climate change contributing to violence?

The U.N. has identified ways in which climate change impacts human security — thereby increasing global unrest. Extreme weather events can "trigger competition for food and water; declining agricultural output can lead to a loss of income for a broad segment of the population; and storms and sea-level rise are already causing more than 20 million people to leave their homes and move to other areas in their countries each year," the U.N. said. 

These are often referred to as "threat multipliers" by the international organization. These are climate events that have the "potential to exacerbate pre-existing threats and other drivers of instability to contribute to security risks," according to the Center for Climate and Security — in other words, multiplying the risk of unrest. Many of the countries facing threat multipliers "already are among the most politically and economically fragile," the U.N. said. 

The U.N. listed five distinct patterns of climate change that contribute to unrest: it intensifies competition over land and water; affects food production and drives up hunger; forces people to move; increases poverty and inequalities; and increases security risks for women and girls. The most noteworthy of these appears to be competition over land and water, because as the planet warms, "longer and more intense droughts are leading to soil erosion, dried-up grazing lands, and reduced crop yields," the U.N. said. 

As a result, "diminishing arable land and unpredictable water sources have exacerbated tensions between farming and herding communities in many places," the U.N. said, including countries such as Mali and Iraq. The lack of land also leads to food shortages, which means that "higher food prices and hunger, combined with existing inequalities and political and social exclusion, can lead to unrest," the U.N. said. 

While this unrest can affect all, the aforementioned risk to women and girls as a result of climate change has also been well-documented. There is "growing evidence that extreme weather events are driving domestic violence, with global implications for public health and gender equality," The Washington Post said. Research cited by the Post concluded that domestic violence rose by 60% in areas that experienced extreme weather.

These types of climate disasters "increase sexual harassment, mental and physical abuse, femicide, reduce economic and educational opportunity and increase the risk of trafficking due to forced migration," Terry McGovern, the head of population and family health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, said to the Post. However, data on "psychological and emotional violence and attacks against minority groups" remains limited, McGovern said.

Is this opinion universally accepted? 

As the U.N. said, climate change is not the sole factor causing global unrest, nor should it be looked at that way — and it seems that some experts are wary of overstating how much the changing environment should be factored in. 

Analysis of climate versus conflict "[raises] two questions related to cause and effect: did climate change alter the weather? And did the change in the weather provoke the conflict?" said a 2018 editorial in the science journal Nature. Only saying yes to both questions "can justify bold statements that global warming promotes violence — and establishing this answer is difficult, if not impossible, in many cases," the editorial said.

The editorial pointed to the Darfur conflict in Sudan, which began in 2003 and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. The U.N. stated that climate change played a direct factor in the conflict, but this was "based on sketchy information, met with harsh criticism and outright disbelief from researchers familiar with the region," Nature said. Many efforts to substantiate links between climate change and conflict are "hampered by a severe sampling bias, including a statistically and politically dubious focus on mainly African countries."

Most scientists generally agree that "climate change does not directly cause armed conflict," but it may "indirectly increase the risk of conflict by exacerbating existing social, economic and environmental factors," said the Red Cross. 

What's next? 

While there may not be a consensus on exactly how much conflict is caused by climate change, "as the climate crisis intensifies in the coming years and decades, more and more people will be forced to leave their homes, as a result of everything from desertification to rising sea levels," the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change said in a report. 

Changes in the environment "do contribute to increased conflict, but this often happens along indirect pathways," said Andrew Harper, the special adviser on climate action for the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Refugees. As this continues, people who have "been displaced by a combination of both conflict and the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are extremely unlikely to be able to return home," Harper added. 

At least 90% of refugees around the world "originate from countries that are already impacted by the climate emergency and/or have the least capacity to adapt to an increasingly hostile environment," Harper said. Without foreign intervention, there is "likely to be an increase in the pre-conditions for conflict and violence to take place." This includes droughts, excessive rainfall and threats to food security, all of which may combine to create regions in which violence can thrive. However, Harper also noted that "very little is inevitable. If we can anticipate future risks, and [are] given sufficient political will, we can mitigate some of the foreseen consequences."