Climate Anomalies and Violent Environments (CAVE)

Does extreme weather increase the risk or severity of violent conflict? Scientific research to date has failed to find a direct and simple link but evidence is mounting that climate anomalies can affect known drivers of conflict. This project focuses on three such intermediate mechanisms; livelihood insecurity, food insecurity, and economic insecurity. First, societies in marginal ecological zones may be particularly vulnerable to climatic shocks since they often lack alternative means of income when pasture and crops dry out and cattle succumb to starvation. This could trigger violent conflict over access to water or force marginal groups to migrate to cities or other less harsh environments, which in turn could cause tension between host and newcomer populations. Second, adverse weather can have a dramatic effect on local food prices with devastating consequences for the urban poor. This could trigger demonstrations and riots and as well as political instability more generally. Third, extreme weather can cause enormous material destruction and deter tourism and foreign investments, thereby adding financial strains to the already struck society. Bad economic performance, in turn, is one of the most powerful factors increasing the risk of civil war. However, climatic anomalies do not increase livelihood, food or economic insecurity in all societies. A severe drought in agricultural parts of Norway may have a moderate effect on supplies and prices of certain foodstuffs but violent social response is unimaginable. An important challenge for this project is to better understand the conditions under which these mechanisms materialize and why they lead to violent outcomes only in certain contexts. Over the past three years, the project team has published a total of nine articles in peer-reviewed journals, in addition to six book chapters, multiple reports and policy briefs, and a long list of article manuscripts that investigate various conditional and indirect climate-conflict relationships in detail. For example, we have found that while agricultural production in Africa is highly sensitive to weather fluctuations, this volatility does not translate into systematically increased conflict risk within countries. At the same time, we have shown that particularly vulnerable social groups (politically excluded and agriculturally dependent) are significantly more likely to sustain violent opposition when a drought strikes, which we interpret as evidence of the reciprocal link between environmental vulnerability and armed conflict. A recent study that focused specifically on ethnic groups, published in the prestigious scientific journal PNAS, found that loss of income from agricultural production has little effect on the risk of conflict outbreak. However, in contexts where other drivers of conflict are prevalent, we found that agriculture-related income shocks contribute to sustaining the violence. The CAVE project has involved three PhD scholars (NTNU and two at Uppsala University) as associate researchers. The first two (Seter, von Uexkull) successfully defended their doctoral theses within the duration of the project; the third (Rudolfsen), which has been funded 50% by CAVE, is scheduled for completion in 2020. In addition, the project as engaged a research assistant who recently was awarded PhD stipend in political science at NTNU. Finally, three project members (Tor Benjaminsen, Elisabeth Gilmore, and PI Halvard Buhaug) have been selected as Lead Authors for different chapters in the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. This is a remarkable achievement, considering that conflict and security studies is a small part of the overall climate assessment conducted by the IPCC. The project has been active in disseminating knowledge to end users within policy, serving as academic advisors and presenting briefings for, inter alia, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the European Parliament, and the conflict risk assessment module of the European Commission?s Joint Research Centre (JRC-GCRI). Moreover, in early March 2018, CAVE organized a two-day science-meets-policy event at the Wilson Center in Washington DC where we hosted a public debate as well as a closed-door policy seminar and an academic workshop on how to best translate research into applied policy and practice. Dissemination toward the general public has been achieved primarily through blog posts at our dedicated Climate and Conflict blog as well as on third-party blogs, and writing of op-eds and commenting on relevant research in Norwegian and international news media.

Recent uprisings across the world have accentuated claims that food insecurity is an important trigger of political violence. Is the Arab Spring representative of a general climate-conflict pattern, where severe climate anomalies are a key driving force? Research to date has failed to conclude on a robust relationship but several notable theoretical and methodological shortcomings limit inference. CAVE will address these research gaps. It asks: How does climate variability affect dynamics of political violence? This overarching research question will be addressed through the accomplishment of three key objectives: (1) Understand how climate variability interacts with land use changes in affecting political violence (2) Understand how food security impacts of climate variability affect political violence (3) Understand how economic impacts of climate variability affect political violence The project moves beyond the current research frontier by emphasizing disaggregation in theory building as well as methods by considering a wide range of insecurity outcomes building on recent advances in geo-referenced data and research designs. Unlike extant research, which is largely limited to considering conflict risk, CAVE investigates possible climate impacts on conflict dynamics, incl duration, severity, and diffusion of violence across temporal and spatial scales. Quantitative analysis constitutes the main analytical tool, supplemented by qualitative case studies and stakeholder analysis for theory development and case validation. Led by Research Professor Halvard Buhaug at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), the project team brings together six institutions from three countries; involves scholars with background in political science, geography, development studies, and economics; has demonstrable competence in qualitative as well as quantitative methods; and blends experienced researchers with proven research talents. The project team has a good gender balance