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Peace and climate change are often treated as two separate topics in international conferences and the establishment of national or international laws. In most conversations concerning national security, environmental elements were considered as by-products of other consequences of conflicts and neglected as a potential cause of conflict. In light of the pandemic, more attention has been drawn to climate change, and we have come to realize that climate is closely related to global peacebuilding and peacekeeping. In the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, peace is directly addressed by goal 16, while environmental sustainability is related to goals 13,14 and 15. As you read through this article, you will realize that all goals are interlinked, and recognizing that there is a complex relationship between climate and peace is critical in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Living in developed economies, we rarely experience or hear about how global conflicts impose detrimental consequences on people’s livelihoods. It is fortunate that we live in relatively peaceful parts of the world, but we need to be aware that although the number of conflicts has been falling from 1992 to 2003, numerous civil wars have emerged after 2003, pushing the number to as high as 53 in 2016 alone. We cannot bluntly conclude that worsening the environmental status is the direct cause of the increasing number of conflicts. Instead, I would argue that there is undeniably a positive correlation.
The Life Cycle of Conflict
To understand the connection between climate change and peacebuilding, we first need to look at how conflict arises and ends. The life cycle of conflict provides us with a standard framework. Starting from early signs of tension— when preventative measures are still possible— to the escalation to violence, as well as from the peaked intensity of conflict to post-conflict recovery, each corresponds to a different peace action. It is important to distinguish these terms:
Peacemaking refers to the measures to address conflicts in progress and usually involves diplomatic action to bring hostile parties to a negotiated agreement.
Peacekeeping operations are a range of activities undertaken to maintain peace and security
Peacebuilding aims to reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict by strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict management and laying the foundation for sustainable peace and development.
At each stage of the conflict, we can identify the risks and opportunities related to climate and the environment. It is important to recognize that, as the title “tangled relationships” suggests, the connections are far more complex than what this framework suggests. It is not guaranteed that every conflict follows this standard storyline and the risks and opportunities are not limited to these. Application of the framework needs to be put into the local context.
How Environmental factors lead to conflicts
Numerous research and statistical studies have supported that there is a strong correlation between a worsening environment and rising number of conflicts. We can think about this in three aspects:
1. Natural Resources
According to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNDP), at least 40% of conflicts that happened in the last 60 years have a link to natural resources. Natural resources that exacerbate conflicts, known as “Conflict Resources,” pose a significant threat to global peace.
Many developing economies are nourished by abundant natural resources. Some of them are high value; for example, extractive ones such as oil, coal, cobalt and diamonds. Others can be natural endowments, like large areas of arable land, wetlands, and forests used to foster the development of agriculture and the lumber industry. The geographic location of different countries gives them unique opportunities. However, on the flip side, without effective governance, abundant resources could easily turn into what is known as the “Resource Curse”. Natural resources are usually a significant source of government revenue— without sufficient transparency, the public would not be able to hold the government accountable for how it uses these revenues. Corruption puts the financial benefits into the hands of a few, and communities living around these natural resources could end up suffering from detrimental pollution. The attraction of foreign investments could also come with lobbying. Large corporations were granted rights to “invade” natural resources sites and extract them in a highly unsustainable way. This could trigger grievances from local communities, leading to conflicts, riots or armed protests against the government. Moreover, abundant resources could exacerbate conflicts and prolong conflict durations as they are able to provide substantial funding for armed organizations.
Diamond in Sierra Leone was given the name “Blood Diamond” as control over diamonds triggered a civil war that cost Sierra Leone 75,000 lives between 1991 and 1999. Over the course of the war, it was estimated that 500,000 Sierra Leoneans became refugees, and 4.5 million people were displaced. If not governed and managed effectively, abundant resources could work against peacebuilding and lead to prolonged, catastrophic wars.
2. Climate Disasters and shocks
The fact that a large percentage of the population in developing economies relies on natural resources for their livelihood means they are more vulnerable to climate disasters and abrupt changes in climate conditions. For instance, extreme droughts could lead to conflicts over sanitized water resources and food supply; flooding could disrupt food production and livestock farming, which triggers conflict within communities, or even across the national border to fight for food or water to sustain livelihood. The adverse effect of climate shocks is different from the ones that result from long-term environmental degradation since most of them are not predicted. Inadequate early-warning policies or technologies have made local communities vulnerable to climate shocks and often have to relocate to other temporary residential areas, losing all they have in their previous residence. Moreover, relocation often means that they will move far away from the source of income they used to rely on, such as privately owned farmland or timberland, and thus have to explore new ways to generate income or resort to financial support from the government, which are usually insufficient in developing countries. All these results in grievances and people who become desperate to find “quick money” to sustain their living, leading to exacerbated risks of conflict.
3. Environmental Degradation
In contrast to climate shocks, the process of environmental degradation happens gradually. Environmental degradation leads to changes in natural resources management practices, which could increase our fragility to conflict risks. For instance, overfishing practices that lead to rising scarcity of fishery resources over time could expose coastal communities to risks of conflict over grievances arising from unequal access to water areas with rich or depleted fishery resources and insufficient income generated from fishing. Environmental degradation could also have a severe negative impact on the mental health of the surrounding communities. Recognizing the day-to-day changes that are happening to the natural environment around them puts people under stress and fear of losing their sources of income. Pressure could then trigger mass dissatisfaction towards the government for the lack of preventive action, causing conflicts.
Stay tuned for the next follow up article on the impact of conflict on the environment and the opportunities!
References:
1. “Terminology Peacekeeping.” United Nations, United Nations, peacekeeping.un.org/en/terminology.
2. “Conflict and Natural Resources Peacekeeping.” United Nations, United Nations, peacekeeping.un.org/en/conflict-and-natural-resources.