A Distant Problem No Longer: How Climate Change is Fuelling Crime and Fraying Trust Across Europe
Publisher: FES Regional Office for International Cooperation
Author(s): Peter Schwartzstein and Sabrina Kaschowitz
Date: 2025
Topics: Climate Change
Countries: European Union
The more the world warms, the more unstable many regions are becoming. Large parts of the planet are already suffering the consequences. But while there has been some focus on the effects on the poorest and most ecologically exposed, the vulnerabilities of Europe and other richer regions have been largely overlooked. As climate stresses and their fallout intensify »at home«, it’s high time to shine the spotlight inwards on a set of challenges that may ultimately affect most of the global »wealthy«, too. This is a distant problem no longer. In some ways, Europe might seem an unlikely candidate for climate-related instability. It does not have exclusionary
political systems, and nor is a large part of its population engaged in agriculture, to mention two of the features scholars have identified as most likely to fuel such conflict globally. Nor, for all its shortcomings, does the continent exhibit the particularly poor governance that is principally responsible for causing climate shocks to manifest in violence elsewhere. Indeed, none of the troubles described in this report are wholly or even mainly due to climate change. They are all messy mixtures of climate and »classic« destabilisers, such as inequality.