Reviewing the Climate-Security Nexus: The Impacts of Climate Vulnerability on Pastoralist Conflicts in the Unity State Region, South Sudan
Publisher: Queen Mary Global Policy Institute
Author(s): Peter Machieng Chan Gaduel
Date: 2022
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Disasters, Governance, Peace and Security Operations
Countries: South Sudan
Climate change is one of the most serious policy issues of our time. Various national governments have now incorporated climate change into their national planning and programming. It is understood that climate change vulnerability has a direct link with national and human security because it is a cause of food insecurity, population displacement, poverty and water crises, which trigger localised conflicts and insecurity (German Advisory Council on Global Change 2007). Such impacts derail sub-national peace-building processes among the nations emerging from war, leading to the prioritisation of policy interventions aimed at climate adaptation and community resiliency programming.
South Sudan has recently emerged from the armed conflict in 2018 and continued to experience increasing trends of sub-national violence. The dramatic changes in climatic variations such as increased rainfall and flooding in South Sudan have led to poor agricultural productivity and disruption of civilian livelihoods. Consequently, local communities are displaced and compete over scarce resources. The environmental-related vulnerabilities combine with political and socio-economic grievances to increase instability in the young African nation. With fragile political institutions, South Sudan may not cope with a climate-related crisis if policymakers do not make early interventions to mitigate perennial climate hazards such as flooding and droughts.