A new study undertaken by a team of international researchers and published in the latest issue of the journal Economia Politica has shown that climate change could increase the likelihood and duration of conflict on the African continent.
To undertake the study, the researchers used a data set from the African continent spanning 26 years, from 1990 to 2016. They analysed whether certain climatic phenomena, in combination with the socioeconomic characteristics of the areas studied, had any effect on the likelihood of triggering a conflict and if it did, how long it lasted.
Relying on a negative binomial regression model, the researchers found that in the context of developing countries, agriculture is unquestionably the sector most exposed to climate variability.
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“Together with agriculture, the joint increase in temperature and changes in precipitation patterns often leads to more severe drought conditions, also influencing the livestock sector by inducing changes in prices or pastoralism displacement with a consequent increase in competition on land-use”, the researchers found.
They also noted that “Water access is another channel responsible for linkages between conflicts and weather-induced water scarcity since the control over water resources is an instrument of war for both offensive and defensive purposes.”
Among findings listed in the study is the fact that a prolonged increase in temperature and precipitation increases the probability of conflict beyond the affected area by four to five times, specifically in populations up to a radius of about 550 km.
The researchers maintained that their results suggest that the pressure on food availability related to water scarcity increases the number of conflicts only if the drought condition has persisted at least for three years prior.
Reacting to the findings of the study, Davide Consoli, a researcher at the INGENIO Institute and one of the authors said that the results obtained have far-reaching implications for territorial policies on the African continent.
“For example, changes in climatic conditions influence the likelihood of conflict over large areas, which means that the design of climate adaptation policies must consider the particularities of each territory,” said Consoli.
From their findings, the researchers recommended that planning of adaptation policies to reduce climate vulnerability should account for multiple spatial interrelations.
“A well-designed adaptation action might improve resilience at the local scale but vulnerability in neighbouring areas may substantially reduce those benefits,” they said.
“Second, the results on [persistence] of violence call for the explicit inclusion of peacekeeping measures in the design and implementation of adaptation strategies for climate resilience,” they added.
Story was adapted from TRT WORLD.
