Climate change can indirectly fuel violence. This is due to tensions on agriculture and the exploitation of mineral resources required for the energy transition, among others. This helps us better understand the risks of armed conflicts worldwide.
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense. These climate shocks not only disrupt ecosystems but also reshape social, economic, and political dynamics on a global scale. At the same time, the transition to a low-carbon economy, while necessary, generates an unprecedented demand for mineral resources such as lithium or rare earths. These resources are often extracted in regions already vulnerable due to social tensions or armed conflicts.
Since the 2010s, economists have been increasingly interested in the complex links between climate change, exploitation of natural resources, and the risk of conflicts. Today, we have robust results and concrete pathways to guide the actions of policymakers, although some areas remain unclear.
Agriculture at the Heart of Conflicts
The mechanism has been highlighted primarily through agriculture. Droughts, heatwaves, and floods systematically increase the likelihood and intensity of violence, especially in regions where livelihoods depend on rain-fed agriculture.
Several factors contribute to this:
- The decline in agricultural incomes can make it more attractive to join armed groups;
- The scarcity of resources can intensify competition between communities;
- Heat itself can increase aggression, even in urban areas.
However, conflict can also degrade the environment, such as illegal mining, expansion of illegal drug-producing crops, deforestation, infrastructural destruction, and river pollution.
How Green Transition Exacerbates Violence
As climate shocks redefine local opportunities, increases in natural resource prices raise the stakes in conflicts. Increases in oil and metal prices have often intensified violence in production zones, especially with intensive capital extraction leading to resource looting. The green transition risks exacerbating these dynamics.
The demand for “transition minerals” is rapidly increasing, threatening to amplify this form of predation in certain regions, while fossil fuel revenues decrease elsewhere.
The precise mechanisms through which mining activity triggers conflicts depend on the type of operation. Artisanal mining, with a more local workforce, plays a more significant role than industrial mining. Pollution from mineral extraction, especially water contamination, can reduce agricultural yields far beyond mining sites, further fueling conflict risks.
Risk factors often overlap. Drought-prone regions often sit above mineral deposits. Climate and resource risks could mutually worsen to trigger violence, even though these complementarities are not yet fully understood.
How to Mitigate Risks?
Which public policies could mitigate conflict risks? Through rigorous assessments, effective measures have been identified. Individual insurance and social protection can break the link between droughts and recruitment by armed groups.
However, careful design is crucial: an insurance stabilizing incomes in bad years may inadvertently encourage predation in good harvests. This requires meticulous contract design and credible monitoring mechanisms.
Irrigation, drought-resistant seeds, and transport development can also mitigate local weather shocks and reduce famine risks. However, roads and markets can also aid armed groups in taxing commerce or smuggling goods. Infrastructure choices must be accompanied by governance strengthening.
Even with these protections, some shocks will still require rapid humanitarian aid. Targeting and timing of deployment are crucial. Evidence on whether aid mitigates or aggravates violence is mixed, highlighting the need for early warning systems and distribution model evaluations.
Regulating mineral extraction and sharing benefits credibly is also crucial. Transparency and certification can reduce funding for armed groups in certain contexts, such as industrial or artisanal operations, border proximity, or state capacity. Additional measures like local revenue sharing, information campaigns setting realistic expectations, and centralized water and forest management can amplify the positive effects of well-designed regulation and reduce political capture possibilities.
Two clarifications are needed at this stage.
- Firstly, mitigating conflict risks through public actions is costly. Many of these measures, however, cost less than prolonged conflict and can bring additional benefits in terms of economic growth.
- Secondly, effective policy design requires additional scientific evidence. Factors like biodiversity loss or migrations are understudied as conflict causes. Scientific knowledge on these subjects sometimes struggles to keep up with political debates.
