New Perspectives on Climate, Weather and Conflict

Owing to advances in the climate change literature, much of the research on climate and conflict has centred around a single question: whether human-induced climatic change in temperature and rainfall makes violence more likely. This climate-conflict nexus has produced a large body of findings but has also been criticized for framing the relationship in too deterministic terms. Moving beyond the cause-effect narratives of climate wars, this panel seeks to develop a more nuanced understanding of how extreme weather events and longer-term climatic shifts interact with political institutions and social identities to shape the conditions under which conflict and violence emerge. Integrating perspectives on climate-driven food and economic insecurity, land use disputes, contestation over renewable energy and rare-minerals, resettlement programmes, migration flows, deforestation, habitat loss, cyclone damage, coastal erosion, landscape alteration, and climate modification, the panel asks how climate and weather impact human insecurity, and what might be done to mitigate crises, disputes and violence that may arise.