Armed-conflict risks enhanced by climate-related disasters in ethnically fractionalized countries

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Aug 16;113(33):9216-21. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1601611113. Epub 2016 Jul 25.

Abstract

Social and political tensions keep on fueling armed conflicts around the world. Although each conflict is the result of an individual context-specific mixture of interconnected factors, ethnicity appears to play a prominent and almost ubiquitous role in many of them. This overall state of affairs is likely to be exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change and in particular climate-related natural disasters. Ethnic divides might serve as predetermined conflict lines in case of rapidly emerging societal tensions arising from disruptive events like natural disasters. Here, we hypothesize that climate-related disaster occurrence enhances armed-conflict outbreak risk in ethnically fractionalized countries. Using event coincidence analysis, we test this hypothesis based on data on armed-conflict outbreaks and climate-related natural disasters for the period 1980-2010. Globally, we find a coincidence rate of 9% regarding armed-conflict outbreak and disaster occurrence such as heat waves or droughts. Our analysis also reveals that, during the period in question, about 23% of conflict outbreaks in ethnically highly fractionalized countries robustly coincide with climatic calamities. Although we do not report evidence that climate-related disasters act as direct triggers of armed conflicts, the disruptive nature of these events seems to play out in ethnically fractionalized societies in a particularly tragic way. This observation has important implications for future security policies as several of the world's most conflict-prone regions, including North and Central Africa as well as Central Asia, are both exceptionally vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change and characterized by deep ethnic divides.

Keywords: armed conflicts; climate-related natural disasters; ethnic fractionalization; event coincidence analysis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Armed Conflicts*
  • Climate Change
  • Climate*
  • Developing Countries
  • Disasters*
  • Gross Domestic Product
  • Humans
  • Risk