Climate Change, Conflict and (In)Security (2023)
The volume examines how climate change is creating and exacerbating insecurities for millions of people globally, and how states, inter-governmental bodies, and others are attempting to meet challenges today and in the near and medium term. It shows that climate change insecurity is relevant to a battery of security areas, including warfighting, stabilisation, human security, influence, and resilience and capacity building. Read Alp Analytica’s contribution, ‘Cascading and systemic risks from environmental change‘. Read More…
African Climate Security Risk Assessment: Executive Summary (2023)
This executive summary of the forthcoming African Climate Security Risk Assessment summarises insights on climate change, peace, and security in Africa. The report itself was requested by the African Union Peace and Security Council (AU-PSC) and is the result of the collaboration between the African Union Commission for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (AUC-PAPS) and adelphi. Alp Analytica contributed a background paper on West Africa for this risk assessment. Read More…
Climate Security and Peacebuilding – Thematic Review (United Nations University, 2023)
The 2023 Thematic Review on Climate Security and Peacebuilding, commissioned by PBSO in partnership with FAO, UNICEF, Climate Security Mechanism and the UK, and led by the UN University’s Centre for Policy Research, distills trends and lessons from climate-security and environmental peacebuilding programming supported by the Peacebuilding Fund, and suggests guidance for future investments in climate-security efforts in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. Read More…
The impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine on climate security and climate action Independent Experts’ Analysis (Chatham House, 2023)
The war in Ukraine is increasing vulnerability to climate change around the world and complicating collective efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While the war is an immediate existential threat for Ukraine, climate change is a short-, medium- and long-term threat around the world, particularly for the most vulnerable, including women, children and the poor. This independent experts’ paper was produced for the OSCE and coordinated by Chatham House. It aims to assess the impact of the war on people’s vulnerability to climate change, to understand the cascading security impacts that climate change could precipitate, and to consider what the war means for the prospects for ambitious climate action in Ukraine, in the OSCE area, and globally. Read More…
Moving from Reaction to Action – Anticipating Vulnerability Hotspots in the Sahel (United Nations Integrated Strategy for the Sahel, 2022)
This report explores climate change, food security, conflict and migration and displacement in the Sahel, providing predictions of how those risks may change in the future under different climate change and development scenarios. It outlines strategic recommendations for a structural transformation of the way we work towards increased resilience. Read More…
The White Paper on the Future of Environmental Peacebuilding (2022)
The White Paper on the Future of Environmental Peacebuilding delivers a strong, cogent message about the relevance, evidence, and promise of environmental peacebuilding. Read More…
Peace Operations and the Challenges of Environmental Degradation and Resource Scarcity (SIPRI, 2021)
This paper investigates the non-traditional security challenges that environmental degradation and resource scarcity pose to multilateral peace operations, whether deployed by the UN or regional organizations such as the AU or the OSCE. Read More…
Mitigating the climate change risks to global security (Chatham House, 2021)
This paper seeks to explain why and how the UK should include a focus on security in its climate strategy going forward, and what this could achieve. Read more…
Climate risk management for international organizations (Chatham House, 2021)
This paper investigates the extent to which international organizations are incorporating climate change into their strategic planning and risk management. Read more…
Making Peace with the Climate (EIP, 2020)
The results of a series of structured interviews with mediation experts that look at how mediators might address climate change in their conflict resolution efforts. Read more…
Europe and Climate Security: Is Europe Delivering on its Rhetoric? (EIP, 2020)
Over the past 15 years, climate-related risks to peace and stability have fastly risen up the European agenda. This report explores the extent to which this policy focus has influenced the international agenda and the degree to which it has translated into improved European responses to the causes and consequences of insecurity in fragile states. Read more…
RISK BRIEF NORTH AFRICA & SAHEL (Climate Diplomacy, 2020)
This risk brief aims to provide a concise overview of peer-reviewed literature on
the links between climate change and violent conflict in the Sahel, Sahara and
North Africa. Read more..
Climate Fragility Risk Brief: Afghanistan (Adelphi, 2019)
For the past four decades, Afghanistan has suffered from the devastating impacts of constant armed conflict. Many Afghans are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change as a result of their exposure to droughts, floods and other natural disasters, as well as their reliance on climate-sensitive livelihoods such as rain-fed agriculture and pastoralism. Conflicts have increased Afghanistan’s vulnerability to climate change, the impacts of which may, in turn, help to create the conditions for continued violence. Read more…
Climate Fragility Fact Sheet: Afghanistan (Adelphi, 2019)
For the past four decades, Afghanistan has suffered from the devastating impacts of constant armed conflict. Many Afghans are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change as a result of their exposure to droughts, floods and other natural disasters, as well as their reliance on climate-sensitive livelihoods such as rain-fed agriculture and pastoralism. Conflicts have increased Afghanistan’s vulnerability to climate change, the impacts of which may, in turn, help to create the conditions for continued violence. Read more…
Shoring up Stability: Addressing Climate and Fragility Risks in the Lake Chad Region (Adelphi, 2019)
Lake Chad is caught in a conflict trap. Violence between armed opposition groups – including the so-called ‘Islamic State West Africa Province’ and ‘Boko Haram’ – and state security forces has left 10.7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Climate change is compounding these challenges. This report identifies key risks and proposes pragmatic solutions to shore up stability in the region. Read more…
Addressing Natural Resource Conflicts: Working towards more effective resolution of national and sub-national resource disputes (Chatham House, 2015)
At a broad level four types of resource dispute can present a general challenge to national stability: secessionist conflicts in which resource-rich regions seek to split away from the rest of a country; disputes over resources as part of a new national compact (i.e. in the context of a peace agreement or new constitution); grievances over standalone projects such as mines and hydroelectric dams; and the cumulative impact of multiple small-scale clashes, typically over land, livestock or fresh water. Read more…
The impact of EU trade agreements on conflict and peace (EPLO, 2013)
The European Union (EU has signed more Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) than any other trade bloc. Its economic influence extends around the world. The trade agreements that the EU concludes with its partners define and determine the EU’s trade and investment relations with a wide range of countries: rich and poor, weak and strong, fragile and stable. Read more…
Natural Resource Management and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan (UN, 2013)
This report investigates the ways in which the management of land, water, minerals, forests and drugs are linked to instability and insecurity in Afghanistan. Its aims are two-fold: first, to suggest ways that the government and the international community can maximise the peacebuilding opportunities that come from better natural resource management and, second, to encourage the international community to introduce safeguards in their existing projects to ensure they do not inadvertently exacerbate conflict. Read more…
Encouraging peacebuilding through better natural resource management (Chatham House, 2013)
Natural resources such as conflict diamonds and illegal timber are known to trigger and prolong armed violence. Countries emerging from conflict face a range of complex environmental and natural resource-related problems. Improved natural resource management is a form of peace-building in that it encourages the development of clear, fair systems of ownership; creates mechanisms to resolve disputes; and promotes the equitable sharing of benefits from natural resource exploitation. Read more…
Remediation of polluted sites in Balkans, Iraq and Sierra Leone (UNEP & ELI, 2012)
Countries emerging from conflict face myriad complex challenges, including restoring peace and security, rebuilding infrastructure and the economy, and providing for the basic needs of their people. The natural environment is often harshly affected during conflicts, and restoring and rehabilitating ecosystems to ensure long-term sustainability is an additional challenge that post-conflict societies must address. Read more…
Capacity Development in post-conflict settings (EU-UN, 2012)
Countries emerging from conflict face myriad complex challenges, including restoring peace Conflict-sensitive natural resource management (NRM) systems are an important tool for preventing violence. A NRM system is conflict-sensitive if the power to make decisions about vital resources can be contested by different stakeholders without violence. This Guidance Note identifies some of the challenges associated with capacity-building for NRM that arise in conflict-affected and fragile states; it then focuses on the goals of NRM and capacity-building. Read more…
Rising temperatures, Rising tensions: Climate change and the risk of violent conflict in the Middle East (IISD, 2009)
In a region already considered the world’s most water- scarce and where, in many places, demand for water already outstrips supply, climate models are predicting a hotter, drier and less predictable climate. This report seeks to present a neutral analysis of the security threat of climate change in the region over the next 40 years. Read more…
From Conflict to Peacebuilding: the role of natural resources and the environment (UNEP & PBSO, 2009)
This report, authored by UNEP and selected members of the Expert Advisory Group, aims to summarize the current academic knowledge and field experience on the links between environment, conflict and peacebuilding. Written to inform UN entities, Member States and other peacebuilding actors, it presents fourteen case studies and provides key recommendations for addressing natural resources and the environment in conflict management. Read more…
Climate change and security in Africa (IISD, 2009)
As science has revealed the speed and scope of climate change, we have begun to realize that it holds potentially serious implications for international security. Climate change—by redrawing the maps of water availability, food security, disease prevalence and coastal boundaries— could increase forced migration, raise tensions and trigger new conflicts. The security threat posed by climate change has caught the world’s political imagination, generating a perceptible shift in the way that a growing number of decision-makers in the North and the South are talking about the subject. Read more…
A recurring anarchy? The emergence of climate change as a threat to international peace and security (Conflict, Security and Development, 2009)
Robert Kaplan’s 1994 article, ‘The Coming Anarchy’ predicted that disease, corruption, overpopulation, scarce resources and climate change would plunge West Africa into pervasive conflict. This paper reviews in greater detail the development of conceptualisations of environment and security that influence current discussions over the potential impacts of climate change on security, paying particular attention to the ways in which West Africa is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Read more…
Assessing the security implications of climate change in West Africa: Country case studies of Ghana and Burkina Faso (IISD, 2008)
There have been some attempts to construct scenarios of the security implications of climate change at a global scale. But the country-level security impacts of climate change have been lost in the midst of the political rhetoric. Local experts in the subject countries are rarely consulted. This paper is a modest effort to address this research gap and to test the links that have been hypothesized to see to what extent they reflect a realistic future for two different countries in West Africa as the impacts of climate change gather pace. Read more…
Trade, Aid and Security – an agenda for peace and development (Earthscan, 2007)
Aid policy and trade policy – the crucial tools to unlock development – are seldom looked at from the perspective of promoting security, and security is not generally seen as a precondition for development. The need to see these objectives – trade, aid and security – as interlocking components of the overriding objectives of peace and development is the point of this book. Read more…
Climate change and foreign policy: an exploration of greater options for integration (IISD, 2007)
An integrated climate change–foreign policy approach has the potential to improve prospects for more effective efforts to address climate change at the national and international level. The areas of diplomacy and foreign relations, energy security, peace and security, trade and investment and development cooperation all involve domestic and international policies that could fundamentally alter the ability and willingness of nations and the international community to meet the challenges of climate change. Read more…