Science Snippets: Connecting War with Climate Change

Draft script:

Military actions and climate change are related. The global-scale skirmishes in Gaza, Ukraine, Pakistan, and Myanmar are not isolated events. Rather, these events are closely related to climate change and the resultant, ongoing decline of food and drinking water that result from climate change.

An article published in the European Union issue of Vox on 14 December 2024 is titled Climate change causes conflict: How policy can respond. Here’s the lede, followed by two additional sentences that complete the first paragraph: “Conflict is tragically common, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This column reviews the rapidly growing literature linking changes in climate to various types of human conflict and finds that climate change is projected to cause an increase in numerous forms of violent human behavior. Policies like a robust social safety net and political inclusion can help ensure a more peaceful future.”

The article at Vox EU continues with a scholarly overview of the relationship between climate change, military conflict, and economic development. This overview is replete with references to peer-reviewed papers: “Conflict and violence are antithetical to economic development. The typical civil war reduces the total size of the economy by 15% and causes an additional 500,000 disability-affected life years ... In addition to direct health consequences, other forms of human capital suffer as well. Education falls by nearly a third of a year on average in cohorts exposed to conflict … and children exposed to conflict in-utero have lower height and weight … and higher mortality for nearly a decade after the conflict concludes ... Less extreme forms of violence have similar negative consequences. For example, gender-based violence in schools leads to disparities in educational attainment between boys and girls ... There is a wide array of outcomes that are negatively affected by conflict and violence, leading to correspondingly massive social and economic costs ...

In spite of these costs, conflict is tragically common, particularly in low- and middle-income countries ... In recent years, the number of global battle deaths has been the greatest it has been since the end of WWII, with the vast majority occurring in civil conflicts – conflict in which state forces fight a rebel actor ... There are myriad reasons for this increase in conflict worldwide, with one increasingly well-supported hypothesis being that climate change is increasing human violence in many forms. Under this view, limiting the suffering caused by conflict will require, in part, bolstering policies that can reduce climate impacts on violent behaviour.”

I would be very surprised if we take steps to reduce conflict resulting from any of a variety of factors. Ongoing, anthropogenic climate change marks the most rapid change in planetary history, and this rapid change is irreversible. In addition, this set of living arrangements depends upon conflict. The Carter Doctrine, created by the only U.S. President in the last century to say he disagreed with military action, indicates that the world’s oil belongs to the country of my birth. The oil keeps flowing from the Middle East to the U.S. because the country of my birth has the most effective killing force in planetary history. When we stop killing people in other countries, the tap runs dry. I doubt there are a few hundred people in the U.S. who would support this idea. In addition, the subsequent loss of aerosol masking would trigger such a rapid heating of Earth that survival would be impossible.

Turning now to an even older article, this one published by the United Nations Climate Change group on 12 July 2022. It is titled Conflict and Climate, with a subtitle of “How do they interact?” The first five paragraphs of this article provide an excellent overview of the interaction between climate change and conflict: “One of the most visceral images of the environmental cost of conflict was during the first Gulf War, when 700 of Kuwait’s oil fields were set ablaze. The smoke plume above them initially stretched for 800 miles. A staggering 11 million barrels of crude oil poured into the Persian Gulf, creating a slick nine miles long. Inland, nearly 300 oil lakes formed on the surface of the desert, polluting the soils for decades.

An international coalition of firefighters battled the fires for months until the last well was finally capped in November 1991. Even now, more than 30 years later, the effects of those fires are still felt, with more than 90 per cent of the contaminated soil still exposed.

Yet the effect of conflict on the climate is more far reaching than burning oil fields: the mass movement of refugees has huge effects on the environment, while land destroyed by shelling or uninhabitable due to landmines, puts pressure on scarce land resources.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees …, a UN agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless peoples, in the past 10 years, the number of people forcibly displaced has doubled to almost 80 million people at the end of 2019, with fewer and fewer of those who flee being able to return home. Among them, almost 35 million are refugees, asylum seekers and others displaced outside their country, while the remaining 45 million are internally displaced.

And while conflict exacerbates the effects of climate change, climate change, at least indirectly, drives conflict. And, as the climate crisis intensifies in the coming years and decades, more and more people will be forced to leave their homes, as a result of everything from desertification to rising sea levels. How will countries cope with this influx of refugees, from for example, Pacific islands which are submerged, and will the sharing of already scarce resources lead to conflict?”

Finally, I turn to a peer-reviewed, open-access paper published in the December 2024 issue of Innovation and Green Development. The peer-reviewed paper is titled War and warming: The effects of climate change on military conflicts in developing countries (1995-2020). Created by three scholars, the peer-reviewed paper begins with five Highlights that describe the paper:

1. “Examines the effect of climate change on the occurrence of military conflicts.”

2. “Climate change cause[s] low-intensity and internationalized intrastate conflicts.”

3. “Does not cause high-intensity, interstate, or intrastate conflicts.”

4. “Internationalized intrastate conflicts have been increasing over time.”

5. “Environmental scarcity would encourage military conflict.”

This is a classic self-reinforcing feedback loop. Climate change causes conflicts, which have been increasing over time. Environmental scarcity results from climate change and further contributes to military conflict.

I conclude with a few words taken from the Abstract of the peer-reviewed paper: “Numerous studies have explored the links between climate change and military conflicts. This study delves into the types and intensities of conflicts likely caused by climate change in developing countries from 1995 to 2020. [I]t isolates the impact of rising global greenhouse gas emissions on conflict occurrence. Findings consistently show a significant positive association between greenhouse gas emissions and military conflicts ... Additional tests confirm these results’ robustness … The analysis highlights how environmental scarcity due to climate change drives small-scale conflicts within countries, while geopolitics and environmental scarcity also lead to internationalized intrastate wars. The study recommends that developed countries and the international community support developing countries in building resilience against climate change and advocates for collaborative efforts to mitigate its adverse effects on global security.”

Wouldn’t that be something to witness? The international community supporting “developing countries in building resilience against climate change and advocat[ing] for collaborative efforts to mitigate its adverse effects on global security.”

I would love to think people on Earth will join forces to decrease conflict. I would love to think we can give peace a chance. Alas, several thousand years on a planet characterized by conflict allow for little hope in a positive direction. Can we give peace a chance? History suggests otherwise.