Trends and Triggers: Climate Change and Interstate Conflict CCAPS Research Brief No. 21
Publisher: Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law
Author(s): Colleen Devlin, Brittany Franck and Cullen S. Hendrix
Date: 2024
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Renewable Resources
Fresh water is crucial to sustaining human life. At a time when most climate change scenarios forecast changes in relative abundance of this critical resource, concern is warranted. This brief addresses the concern that changing precipitation patterns will be a cause of future interstate conflict, an issue that is largely neglected in climate change studies. Pushing beyond simple theories about resource-based conflict, it utilizes important concepts of trends (long-term means) that may affect the baseline probability of conflict, and triggers (short-term deviations) that may affect the probability of conflict in the short run. The findings illustrate that higher long-run variability in precipitation and, to a lesser extent, lower mean levels of precipitation are associated with the outbreak of militarized interstate disputes, or clashes short of full-blown war. In contrast, joint water scarcity – defined as both countries experiencing below mean rainfall in the same year – has a conflict-dampening effect.