Severe droughts, damaging floods and mass migration: Climate change is becoming a focal point for security and conflict research and a challenge for the world’s governance structures. But how severe are the security risks and conflict potentials of climate change? Could global warming trigger a sequence of events leading to economic decline, social unrest and political instability? What are the causal relationships between resource scarcity and violent conflict? This book brings together international experts to explore these questions using in-depth case studies from around the world. Furthermore, the authors discuss strategies, institutions and cooperative approaches to stabilize the climate-society interaction.

This report presents an analysis of the pathways from climate change to conflict and how that relationship is unfolding in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR). The analysis is based on a semistructured literature review of causal pathways from climate change to conflict and three case studies of climate-related conflict in the CENTCOM AOR.

Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for-and in many cases is already affecting-a broad range of human and natural systems. The compelling case for these conclusions is provided in Advancing the Science of Climate Change, part of a congressionally requested suite of studies known as America's Climate Choices. While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never closed, the book shows that hypotheses about climate change are supported by multiple lines of evidence and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations. As decision makers respond to these risks, the nation's scientific enterprise can contribute through research that improves understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change and also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels. The book identifies decisions being made in 12 sectors, ranging from agriculture to transportation, to identify decisions being made in response to climate change. Advancing the Science of Climate Change calls for a single federal entity or program to coordinate a national, multidisciplinary research effort aimed at improving both understanding and responses to climate change. Seven cross-cutting research themes are identified to support this scientific enterprise. In addition, leaders of federal climate research should redouble efforts to deploy a comprehensive climate observing system, improve climate models and other analytical tools, invest in human capital, and improve linkages between research and decisions by forming partnerships with action-oriented programs.

Climate change is reshaping the planet, its ecosystems, and the evolution of human societies. Related impacts and disasters are triggering significant shifts in the inextricably interconnected human and ecological systems with unprecedented potential implications. These shifts not only threaten survival at species and community levels, but are also emerging drivers of conflicts, human insecurity, and displacement both within and across national borders. Taking these shifting dynamics into account, particularly in the Anthropocene era, this book provides an analysis of the climate-conflict-migration nexus from human security and resilience perspectives. The core approach of the volume consists of unpacking the key dynamics of the nexus between climate change, conflict, and displacement and exploring the various local and global response mechanisms to address the nexus, assess their effectiveness, and identify their implications for the nexus itself. It includes both conceptual research and empirical studies reporting lessons learned from many geographical, environmental, social, and policy settings.

Alarming predictions have been made about the potential for climate change to fuel war and other forms of violent or social conflict, particularly due to resource scarcities (including food, water and energy) driven by climate change. This article first charts the likely security risks arising from the effects of climate change, including traditional security threats (such as armed conflict) and non-conventional or 'human security' risks (particularly as regards access to resources - food, water, energy - that are essential to human dignity). The article then examines the spectrum of international law implications of the relationship between climate change and these forms of insecurity. While the spectre of 'climate wars' is fanciful, the effects of climate change are likely to stimulate domestic and global tensions and to aggravate other underlying causes of conflict. Conventional and human security problems will arise from distributional conflicts over scarce resources (food, water, energy, land and seas), disputes over maritime boundaries, competition in the polar regions, pressure upon public health infrastructure, changing migration patterns, potential for radicalisation, and systemic stresses upon weak States, economies and social orders. Such consequences do not inexorably lead to outbreaks of violence or political instability, but they may be contributing factors given the right constellation of conditions. With the processes of climate change already well underway, even the rapid conclusion of an effective post-Kyoto global climate change regime (such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme) would not be sufficient to avert the security risks that are already in formation. It is vital, therefore, to consider the range of ways in which public international law can be marshalled to prevent, contain and remedy the consequent security threats. Problems of identifying relevant primary obligations and attendant problems of causation limit the utility of relying upon principles of State responsibility to confront climate-related security risks. More promising are the specialised branches of international law (such as environmental law and the law of the sea), some of which offer prospects for responding to the challenge and others which would require more radical refashioning. Engaging the specialised branches of international law enables a thicker, more systemic response to the security risks attending climate change and is likely to prove more effective than relying on singular institutions (such as the Security Council) or normative frameworks (such as a new global climate deal). The costs of modifying international law in these ways is undoubtedly less than the human and financial costs which will likely ensue from resource conflicts and sovereign competition aggravated by unmitigated climate change.