Climate Change and Armed Conflict: Challenges and Opportunities for Maintaining International Peace and Security Through Climate Justice

• Author: Onita Das
• Pages: 411-432

411

Climate Change and

Armed Conflict: Challenges

and Opportunities for

Maintaining International

Peace and Security

Through Climate Justice

Onita Das*

Introduction .................................................................................................412

I. Climate Change and Armed Conict ...................................................413

A. e Nexus Between Climate Change and Armed Conict ..............414

B. e Climate Change and Armed Conict Nexus in Darfur

and Syria ........................................................................................416

II. Climate Change-related Armed Conict and the Limitations of

Existing Climate Change Regulation ....................................................420

A. Challenges of Climate Change-related Armed Conict ...................420

B. Existing Climate Change Regulation ..............................................422

III. Climate Change-related Armed Conict rough a Climate

Justice Lens ..........................................................................................427

A. Climate Justice: A Brief Overview ...................................................428

B. Applying Climate Justice Principles to Climate Change and

Armed Conict ..............................................................................429

Conclusion ...................................................................................................431

* I would like to thank Christine Castro, Esq. and Divya Pillai, Esq. for their invaluable

research assistance. Special thanks also goes to Dr. Ben Pontin and Elena Blanco for their

review and comments and to Prof. Randall Abate for his excellent comments and edits on

this chapter.

Chapter 15

412 Climate Justice

Introduction

Climate change is real; it is accelerating in a dangerous manner; and

it not only exace rbates threats to international peace and security, it

is a threat to internat ional peace and security.

– United Nations Secretary Ge neral Ban K i Moon1

Climate change is a global phenomenon. As the United Nations Intergovern-

mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated almost a decade ago, “warm-

ing of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations

of increases in global average air and oc ean temperatures, wide-spread melt-

ing of snow a nd ice a nd rising global average sea level.”2 In addition, scien-

tists have determined that such anthropogenic climate change can directly

cause changes to the environment, which, in turn, may then indirectly afect

human beings in the long term.3

is chapter a rgues that under certain circumstances, particularly where

human adaptation to the changing climate is ineective, climate change

impacts can spark armed conicts4 that, in turn, negatively aect the envi-

ronment and the population, thereby leading to a new c ycle of destruction

that engages the issues of climate justice. In these circumstances, the aected

population has to adapt to the situation, or in some cases leave for a more

habitable environment. Such migration or direct negative eects of climate

change on t he environment could trigger conict w ithin and with other

communities a s people c ompete for dwindling resources. For example, the

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) hig hlighted the c ausal

link between climate change and armed conict in its 2007 report, “Sudan:

Post-conict Environmental Assessment.”5 More recently, the issue of cli-

mate change contributing to conict has been raised in relation to the con-

ict in Syria.6

1. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Remarks to the Security Council on the Impact of

Climate Change on International Peace and Security (July 20, 2011), http://www.un.org/sg/STATE-

MENTS/index.asp?nid=5424.

2. S. S  ., C C 2007: I, A,  V. C-

  W G I   F A R   I

P  C C (2007), h ttps://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ ar4/wg1/en/

spmsspm-direct-observations.html.

3. See generally C C 2014: I, A,  V, P A: G

 S A (IPCC 2014); David Cohen, Climate Change Could Kill 500,000 a Year by

2030, N S, May 29, 2009, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17218-climate-change-

could-kill-500000-a-year-by-2030.html.

4. e terms “armed conict” and “conict” will be used interchangeably throughout the chapter.

5. UNEP, S: P-C E A  (2007).

6. Colin P. Kelley et al., Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent and Implications of the Recent Syrian

Drought, 112 P. N’ A. S. 3241 (2015).