Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-7 (section)

==== 7.2.7.1 Introduction ====

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''In AR5, conflict was addressed in WGII [[IPCC:Wg2:Chapter:Chapter-12|Chapter 12]] on human security. The chapter concluded that some of the factors that increase the risk of violent conflict within states are sensitive to climate change'' ( ''medium evidence, medium agreement'' ) '', that people living in places affected by violent conflict are particularly vulnerable to climate change'' ( ''medium confidence'' ) ''and that climate change will lead to new challenges to states and will increasingly shape both conditions of security and national security policies'' ( ''medium evidence, medium agreement'' ) ''.'' AR5 characterised a major debate within the field as: authors supporting an association between climate anomalies and conflict that can be extrapolated into the future (e.g., Hsiang et al. (2013); [[#Hsiang--2014|Hsiang and Marshall (2014)]] ; Burke et al. (2015a)) and authors arguing that these associations are not universal and break down when contextual, scale and political factors are introduced (e.g., [[#Buhaug--2014|Buhaug et al. (2014)]] ; Buhaug (2016)).

''Consistent with AR5 findings, there continues to be little observed evidence that climatic variability or change cause violent inter-state conflict. In intra-state settings, climate change has been associated with the onset of conflict, civil unrest or riots in urban settings'' ( ''high agreement, medium evidence'' ) ( [[#Ide--2020|Ide (2020)]] , ''and changes in the duration and severity of existing violent conflicts'' ( [[#Koubi--2019|Koubi, 2019]] ). Climate change is conceptualised as one of many factors that interact to raise tensions ( [[#Boas--2016|Boas and Rothe, 2016]] ) through diverse causal mechanisms ( [[#Mach--2019|Mach et al., 2019]] ; [[#Ide--2020|Ide et al., 2020]] ) and as part of the peace-vulnerability-development nexus ( [[#Barnett--2019|Barnett, 2019]] ; [[#Abrahams--2020|Abrahams, 2020]] ; [[#Buhaug--2021|Buhaug and von Uexkull, 2021]] ). New areas of the literature assessed in this report include the security implications of responses to climate change, the gendered dynamics of conflict and exposure to violence under climate change and civil unrest in urban settings. The impact of violent conflict on vulnerability is not addressed in this chapter but does arise in other chapters (Sections 8.3.2.3, 17.2.2.2). Other chapters address non-violent conflict over changing availability and distribution of resources, for example, competing land uses and fish stocks migrating to different territories (Sections 5.8.2.3; 5.8.3, 5.9.3, 5.13, 9.8.1.1, 9.8.5.1). A commonly used definition of armed conflict is conflicts involving greater than 25 battle-related deaths in a year; this number represents the Uppsala Conflict Data Program threshold for inclusion in their database, a core resource in this field.

''Climatic conditions have affected armed conflict within countries, but their influence has been small compared to socioeconomic, political and cultural factors ( [[#Mach--2019|Mach et al., 2019]] )'' ( ''high agreement, medium evidence'' ) ''.'' Inter-group inequality, and consequent relative deprivation can lead to conflict and the negative impacts of climate change lower the opportunity cost of involvement in conflict ( [[#Buhaug--2020|Buhaug et al., 2020]] ; [[#Vestby--2019|Vestby, 2019]] ). Potential pathways linking climate and conflict include direct impacts on physiology from heat or resource scarcity; indirect impacts of climatic variability on economic output, agricultural incomes, higher food prices and increasing migration flows; and the unintended effects of climate mitigation and adaptation policies ( [[#Koubi--2019|Koubi, 2019]] ; [[#Busby--2018|Busby, 2018]] ; [[#Sawas--2018|Sawas et al., 2018]] ). Relative deprivation, political exclusion and ethnic fractionalisation and ethnic grievances are other key variables ( [[#Schleussner--2016|Schleussner et al., 2016]] ; [[#Theisen--2017|Theisen, 2017]] ). Research shows that factors such as land tenure and competing land uses interacting with market-driven pressures and existing ethnic divisions produce conflict over land resources rather than a scarcity of natural resources caused by climate impacts such as drought ( ''high agreement, medium evidence'' ) ( [[#Theisen--2017|Theisen, 2017]] ; [[#Balestri--2017|Balestri and Maggioni, 2017]] ; [[#Kuusaana--2015|Kuusaana and Bukari, 2015]] ; Box 8.3).

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