Climate Change and Conflict: Lessons From Emerging Practice

While research into the link between climate exposure and conflict continues, there is growing consensus that they intersect, and that each may compound the other in various ways. While it is essential that we continue to build our understanding of the relationship, some organisations are already developing strategies and interventions to address conflict-climate dynamics.

With support from the UK’s Department for International Development, MercyCorps set out to gather and analyse examples of work in this area, and to convene experts, operational organisations and donors to identify areas that are ripe for further development and piloting, for taking to scale, or for further research.  

Case studies fell into three groups. The first, largest group is working at a community scale on acute conflicts, most of which target potential conflict arising from shared resource use, either addressing resource competition or promoting conflict resolution mechanisms. A second, smaller group is working at the system level; integrating climate fragility into national or regional action or policy. A third group is employing analytical frameworks integrating conflict and climate, either integrating conflict into participatory disaster risk assessments, integrating climate information into conflict analyses, or in a few cases investing in ‘analytical deep dives’ that offer a deeper understanding of the interactions amongst social, economic and environmental dynamics.