The battles of climate change: a study warns that armed conflicts will intensify

A new study has determined that one of the causes that have fueled armed conflict in the world over the past decade was the modification of climatic parameters. With epicenter in Africa but, attentive, also in Latin America.

"Our results indicate that, with current trends in climate change, the likelihood of conflict will increase", remarked the Spanish Jesus Crespo Lent, Professor of University of Economics of Vienna and one of the authors of the investigation "Climate, conflicts and forced migration".

"There are several different channels that link climate change to conflict, for example increasing the frequency of droughts leads to negative economic conditions and internal migration that may exacerbate the potential of armed conflict.", said the dialogue specialist domain.com.

Crespo said that "Although the study is not explicit about the particular mechanisms, we find that over the last decade, climate change has been one of the causes of the clashes in the world".

With current trends in climate change, the likelihood of armed conflict will increase "

According to the report, the consequences are different for each country. "The effects have been particularly significant for African countries, in West Asia and Latin America, where Brazil and Honduras seem to be particularly sensitive to changing climatic variables", he explained. As well Mexico and Colombia appear among the most affected.

A report of World Bank (WB) last year, he said that by 2050, some 17 million people in Latin America They may be forced to initiate internal migration in their countries because of water shortages, changes in agricultural productivity and sea level rise. This figure would reach 150 million on a global scale, If you add the 40 million that will be affected in Southeast Asia and another 86 million in sub-Saharan Africa.

This new research does not determine when and how forced migration will occur because "The model is not able to predict the true moment of conflict"but it is clear that "The results indicate that, given current trends in climate change, the likelihood of conflict will increase and, hence, the incidence and quantity of refugee flows in the future".

For the BM, "The impact of the phenomenon could be mitigated to a large extent if measures are taken to curb global warming". In this case, only about 40 million people would be forced to start the long farewell of their land.

In the Crespo report, the conclusion goes in the same direction: "What needs to be done in developing economies to reduce the risk of conflict and forced migration, it is to improve the adaptation capabilities" to the phenomenon, he explained.

And as always the big challenge is to curb carbon dioxide emissions – the main greenhouse gas – encouraging an unprecedented transition in the modes of production of electricity, production and transport.

At the current rate, as he had warned months ago Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warming should lead to an increase in global temperature seriously jeopardize the achievement of the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement: limit this increase to 1.5 °.