By Micah Petersen
Over recent decades, climate change has emerged as a major concern for our human wellbeing. The influences of climate change on any given aspect of life are complex and can be difficult to track or measure. Changes to our immediate environment, such as deforestation or more frequent droughts, may be easily quantifiable; but one aspect of climate change that hasn’t been so deeply explored is the relationship between climate change and increased rates of violence.
The multiple and complex relationships between climate change and societies has made it difficult to draw lines of causation or correlation to rates of violence. In recent years, there has been an increasing body of evidence that suggests that aspects of climate change do play a role in increased rates of violence. For the most part, there has been an inability to show any direct causation linking changes in the environment to violence, but there is a consensus amongst scientists that climate change can exacerbate economic, social or environmental conditions to the point where it can influence an increase in violence. The main factors or indicators that may be causing these linked increases in violence are slightly less clear or consistent.
In general, those that are most prone to be affected by increased rates of conflict or violence from climate change are those that already live within vulnerable or fragile ecosystems. These tend to live in low- or middle-income countries that heavily rely on agriculture, natural resource extraction or other industries vulnerable to weather variability. Countries like Somalia and Yemen have been linked to increased violence through environmental collapse, such as exceptionally long droughts. In other cases, such as Syria, existing conflict weakens a country's ability to respond to this climate variability, leading to a cycle of increased violence as state institutions are unable to appropriately respond to climate issues. However, in high-income countries like the United States, rates of violence have remained fairly uniform when compared to periods of high climate variability, likely indicative of infrastructure or systems in place that can account for climate strains.
The main environmental factors that researchers have been able to pinpoint as having causal associations to violence have been increases in temperature or extremes in precipitation. Numerous studies have temperature increase events to increased rates of violence: for example, the El Niño Southern Oscillation, which may have played a role in the development of 21% of civil conflicts since 1950 in the tropics. Other studies point to decreases in rainfall associated with drought, leading to an increase in likelihood of high-intensity violence the next year. These studies have been able to establish a statistical correlation between climate change and violence. However, there is common consensus that this is only in conjunction with other causal influences, such as socioeconomic and political instability, land disputes, poverty, and human right violations.
Climate change is an exacerbating force that can compound the effects of food and water insecurity, and loss of income or livelihoods. Changes in climate can have a direct impact on crop yields, which in turn substantially reduces food supplies and income. As income and food security diminishes, people have more motivation to acquire or defend their resources and have less to lose when it comes to rioting or rebelling. These conditions create a social and political environment that is vulnerable to violence, famine, inequalities, disease outbreak and structural violence’s. Often, when combined, this creates a cycle that is prone to perpetrate increased forms of violence through a feedback loop.
The forms of violence that emerge from these climate exacerbated conditions are varied, and have different degrees of correlation. On a psychological level, many cross-sectional studies have found a connection between increased temperatures and increased likelihood of violent behaviour, even after controlling for sociocultural factors such as race, age, poverty or culture. This alone is not enough to make any broad assumptions about increased rates of conflict in the future but may be an important consideration as global temperatures experience more extreme variability in the future. Climate change also creates conditions for those already most vulnerable in societies to be at a higher risk of being exposed to violence. With an increase in unfavourable food and economic conditions, women and children are often forced into conditions that make them more vulnerable to violence and sexual assault, particularly when collecting water, food or other resource. One study found that intimate partner violence increased 300% in Vanuatu after the country experienced two cyclones. Competition over limited resources, particularly when exacerbated by climate change, has been tied to increased rates of violence amongst many communities, such as between pastoralists and farmers when herders are forced to expand their grazing land into farming territory due to lack of vegetation. Lastly, a state’s inability to react to environmental challenges can lead to structural violence that can open the door to larger scale conflict, terrorism and mass migration as vulnerable communities are left unsupported, and resort to extreme measures for survival.
Some have argued that since climate change has not been the only influence driving these cases of increased violence, and since we still have too little direct evidence on many of the causal links, resources and attention would be better paid to other influences such as the economic factors that drive violence. I would argue that this would be a mistake, and that all the factors involved with these increases in violence must be addressed together. The figure on the right shows the analytical framework with which climate systems, resources, security, and social stability interact. As the framework demonstrates, there is a complex relationship between systems that may contribute to violence. As climate change continues to worsen, it is critical for governments and leaders to create and support systems that address climate impacts, particularly in the most vulnerable and sensitive areas.
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