Does climate change cause armed conflict?

A new study finds that climate has affected the risk of armed conflict. Though other drivers of violence were found to be substantially more influential, as global temperatures continue to rise, the changing climate is expected to further amplify the risk of conflict. Can a changing climate trigger organised armed conflict, such as civil war, or make it more severe? A new study , co-authored by Antwerp University's Prof. Jean-Francois Maystadt , endeavors to explain the current state of debate on the issue through consultation with experts in fields such as political science, environmental science and economics, who hold divergent views. "Disagreement on climate and conflict has been stark," said Katharine Mach, Director of the Stanford Environment Assessment Facility and study lead author. "Our analysis represents a strong foundation for figuring out the strengths and limitations of current understanding and reasons for disagreement." Heavier impact The experts' best estimates are that 3 to 20 per cent of the risk of violent armed conflict within countries has been influenced by climate over the last century. None of the experts, who serve as co-authors of the study, ruled out the role of climate in 10 percent of conflict risk. "Most striking to me is the consensus among scholars from different disciplines who have reached very different conclusions about the climate-conflict nexus in their previous work," said Prof. Maystadt, of the Institute of Development Policy (Antwerp University) and Lancaster University's Department of Economics.