Forecasting Armed Civil Conflict under Alternative Climate Change and Socioeconomic Scenarios

The impact of climate change on conflict is complex as the pathways are likely indirect and conditional. Changing weather patterns and other physical processes associated with climate change can amplify common drivers of armed conflict, such as economic underperformance, food insecurity, and human displacement, but these effects will vary because the immediate and long-term impacts of climatic shocks depend on the affected societies’ resilience and adaptive capacity. This project investigates the joint role of socioeconomic and climate change for forecasts of future armed conflicts. Currently, migration as an indicator of social stress, which may then lead to social unrest and violence in both receiving and originating communities, is being evaluated by eliciting experts’ mental maps of the potential pathways.