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鈥淲e know that there will be more conflicts in the future as a result of climate change than there would have been in a hypothetic world without climate change,鈥� said , deputy director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University鈥檚 , although existing data and methodologies cannot predict how many additional conflicts there will be, or which causal factors will matter most.

Levy spoke at a December 19 panel at the 浪花直播 Center on new research on the linkages between climate change and conflict. He was joined by Joseph Hewitt, technical team leader for USAID鈥檚 ; , assistant professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin; and , postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University鈥檚 Woodrow 浪花直播 School of Public and International Affairs.

Linking El Ni帽o to Civil Conflict

Princeton University鈥檚 Solomon Hsiang that used statistical analysis to link observable changes in the global climate to outcomes on the ground. The researchers looked at countries strongly impacted by the and compared the onset of civil conflict in those countries during El Ni帽o, relative to the La Ni帽a state.

鈥淸El Ni帽o] is the single dominant pattern of the entire planet鈥檚 climate on annual timescales,鈥� said Hsiang. 鈥淪o what is convenient here from a statistical standpoint is that the climate is going back and forth very rapidly鈥o there haven鈥檛 been major socio-political changes over that time horizon.鈥�

The study found that conflict risk for a given region doubled during the hotter and drier El Ni帽o state, from an average of around three percent to six percent. 鈥淵ou can make a variety of different assumptions about what kind of statistical model you are using and you generally always get the same estimate,鈥� said Hsiang. 鈥淭he correlation between the global climate and conflict seems to be very, very robust to a variety of choices鈥t鈥檚 one of the most robust results I have seen in any of the statistical literature.鈥�

Nevertheless, 鈥渙ur study doesn鈥檛 say anything about why El Ni帽o might be linked to conflict,鈥� Hsiang clarified. 鈥淲e are just showing an association. Climate is not the only thing driving conflict in these countries鈥t exacerbates an existing problem.鈥�

Identifying Chronic Vulnerability in Africa

Working at the University of Texas at Austin, Josh Busby presented the program, a composite index mapping climate security vulnerability in a region with rising strategic significance and low adaptive capacity. The index incorporates not only physical exposure but also demographic, socio-economic, and political indicators.

鈥淲e focus on situations where large numbers of people could be exposed to mass death from climate-related hazards,鈥� said Busby. He identified southern Somalia, South Sudan, and much of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as among the most vulnerable regions, relative to the rest of Africa.

These areas might not necessarily appear as the most vulnerable from a strictly climatic point of view, Busby said, but the composite analysis brings them into focus. For instance, , contributed to the famine Somalia experienced this year. Although the precise role of climate change is unclear, from a , southern Somalia remains an area of concern, he said.

Understanding Pre-Existing Conditions in Vulnerable States

The Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation at USAID has commissioned research looking at the relationship between countries that are conflict affected, countries that are fragile, and countries that are highly , said Hewitt: 鈥淲e wanted to better understand which countries are likely not to have the capacity, or likely not to have the ability, to manage the stresses and strains of climate threat.鈥�

鈥淸Fragile states] are already characterized by many, many different challenges that contribute to causes of conflict, just aside from climate change itself,鈥� Hewitt pointed out. 鈥淎ny understanding of the relationship between climate change and conflict needs to understand how climate change is in some sense filtered through all of these existing characteristics.鈥�

On the other hand, many countries identified as highly vulnerable to climate change are not necessarily considered fragile. Despite the predicted changes in climate for these places, they have sources of conflict mitigation and resilience that will likely be able to handle the strains posed by climate change, Hewitt said. 鈥淲e really want to try and understand what is happening in these countries. How are those countries positioned to confront those stresses, identify coping strategies, and adapt?鈥�

鈥淎ny programming that is done to address the consequences of climate threats needs to be attentive to the connections between the program and any pre-existing characteristics that either mitigate conflict or in some sense make the society more vulnerable to conflict鈥� said Hewitt.

Projecting Into the Future

Columbia University鈥檚 Marc Levy noted that a strong case for linking climate stress to increased risk of conflict can be made by better explaining the that leads from environmental change to societal stress. According to the , climate change will increase stress on a number of biophysical processes and systems relevant to human societies, such as agriculture, , ecosystems, and disease. A body of research shows that these natural stresses make societies more vulnerable, consequently increasing their risk of conflict.

Nevertheless, these conclusions are limited by data, according to Levy. Referencing Hsiang et al.鈥檚 study, he noted that 鈥渢here are very few other things that you could measure in a large-end statistical global time series test than inter-annual variability and civil war.鈥� And, importantly, climate change will alter the conditions that the study focused on. 鈥淏y focusing on variability we know what happens to societies when you get variations around a mean, but we have almost no basis for figuring out what happens when the mean changes,鈥� he said.

鈥淚 think we need to firm up our knowledge base by looking more explicitly at how these things operate in high-risk countries. And perhaps start thinking about some customized approaches that might be relevant in high conflict risk countries that wouldn鈥檛 necessarily be on the radar outside of those countries,鈥� Levy concluded.

Drafted by Theresa Polk and edited by Schuyler Null and Geoff Dabelko.