Climate Change and Conflict

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Climate change is widely recognized as the greatest challenge of our time. Warming, drying, intensification of extreme events, and sea-level rise constitute tangible threats to habitability, livelihoods, and well-being in many parts of the world. Misguided societal responses to this challenge (i.e., adaptation, mitigation) may aggravate the situation by accentuating gaps between winners and losers. Plausible knock-on effects of these dynamics include large-scale migration, sociopolitical polarization, resource competition, and violent conflict. Although evidence for a direct influence of climate events on outbreak of conflict is modest, climate variability affects how conflicts ebb and flow. With sustained climate change, these links are expected to grow stronger. In this panel, we take stock of emerging research that seeks to advance our understanding of links between climate change and conflict. Specifically, the panel will focus on how climatic conditions and events shape conflictual and cooperative behavior, how feedback effects from conflict increase climate vulnerability, and how transitions to a more sustainable future may affect conflict risk.

Sub Unit

• Division 21: Conflict Processes

Individual Presentations

• Climate Governance by Rebel Groups - Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, University of Maryland, College Park; Leonardo Gentil Fernandes, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Elisabeth Gilmore, Carleton University; Reyko Huang, Texas A&M University; Danielle F. Jung, Emory University; Cyanne E. Loyle, Pennsylvania State University

• Climate Hazard Impacts on Cooperation and Conflict: Evidence from Bangladesh - Nina von Uexkull, University of Konstanz; Vally Koubi, ETH Zurich; Jan Michael Freihardt, ETH Zurich

• Dynamics of Vulnerability, Environmental Hazards, and Violent Conflict - Elizabeth Tennant, Cornell University

• Estimating Vulnerability: Endogenous Modeling of Governance-Economy-Conflict - Jonas Vestby, PRIO; Håvard Hegre, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Halvard Buhaug, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

• Green Transitions and International Conflict - Jonathan Moyer, University of Denver; Collin J. Meisel, University of Denver; Caleb Petry, Denver, University of

Chair

• Halvard Buhaug Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

Discussants

• Vally Koubi ETH Zurich

• Julia Leininger German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS, formerly German Development Institute)