About the Campaign
Addressing climate security requires an understanding of the best practices and lessons learned in the joint challenges of climate change, conflict, and human security. By considering the link between climate change and conflict and taking a comprehensive and integrated approach, the development sector and related fields can reduce the risk of conflict and instability and promote peace and security.
Together, USAID’s Center for Conflict & Violence Prevention & ConnexUs are hosting Climate Security: Finding Shared Solutions to Shared Challenges, an online crowdsourced knowledge-sharing campaign running from February and April 2023.
This knowledge-sharing campaign is designed to promote discussion, shared learning & collaboration among peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian practitioners. As a crowdsourced platform for social impact in conflict-affected areas, we invite you to participate however you can from wherever you are. The campaign will feature global discussions on ConnexUs, ConnexUs Thursday Talks webinars, knowledge sharing, & more. Sign up to stay up to date on the campaign & opportunities to participate.
About Climate Security
Climate security refers to the ways in which the impacts of, and responses to, climate change alter the socioeconomic and geopolitical systems that affect peace and security. As the effects of climate change become increasingly severe and widespread, they can contribute to conflict, instability, and displacement, particularly in areas already affected by fragility, poverty, and vulnerability. By taking a comprehensive and integrated approach to addressing climate security, we can reduce the risk of conflict and instability and promote peace and security. However, despite some key lessons learned, tools and strategies for addressing this challenge are limited. Therefore we see it as essential to promote discussion, shared learning & collaboration toward climate security action.
Featured Resources
Integrating Climate Security in Development Practice
Climate change and environmental degradation are increasingly shaping the security landscape with implications for peace and development. Research shows that climate change and environmental degradation can undermine development, exacerbate existing social, economic, and political stresses...
ConnexUs Thursday Talk Recording: Climate Action as Peacebuilding in Iraq
The ConnexUs Thursday Talk, Climate Action as a Means for Peacebuilding in Iraq, featured Martha Gillberg from the Search for Common Ground - Iraq. This ConnexUs Thursday Talk was part of the climate security knowledge-sharing...
Land & Conflict: A Toolkit for Intervention 2.0
The Complex Relationship Between Land and Violent Conflict The purpose of this toolkit is to introduce readers to the complex relationship between land and violent conflict and to provide guidance on recommended approaches and actions...
Water & Conflict: A Toolkit for Programming
USAID has released its recently revised Water and Conflict Toolkit, first published in 2014. As of 2015, 177 million people lacked basic drinking water and 284 million people did not use basic sanitation in conflict-affected...
Responding to Crisis Multiplied: Climate, Conflict, and Unarmed Civilian Protection
Climate change, conflict, and the protection of civilians are intimately connected. The way that the climate crisis erodes our physical environment quickly cascades into an erosion of human security, stressing relationships, economic and social safety...
Mainstreaming Environmental Sustainability and Clean Energy Access in the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP)
The Syria crisis continues to fuel the largest displacement crisis in the world. Ecological degradation and climate disruption are impacting and shaping the humanitarian and development operations that have been mounted in response. These include...
How Climate Change Fuels Deadly Conflict
Climate fragility afflicts more and more countries in the world today. Flood and drought, as well as changes in multi-year and seasonal variability, have become major risk factors. Read more here: https://globalclimate.crisisgroup.org/
Climate Change, Gender Equality and Peacebuilding: The Value of Gender-Sensitive and Climate-Sensitive Conflict Analysis
In recent years, it has increasingly been recognised that both climate change and efforts to adapt to it have complex and diverse effects on peace and conflict dynamics. They can exacerbate patterns of exclusion and...
Addressing the Climate-Conflict Nexus in Fragile States
The present study looks at the relationship between climate variability and violent conflict, and the extent to which state capacity is able to mediate this link within five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that have experience...
“If I Leave, I Cannot Breathe”: Climate Change and Civilian Protection in Iraq
Climate change is set to cause unpredictable weather patterns, including droughts and flooding, desertification of once arable lands, and increased water shortages. Over the next thirty years, the temperature across Iraq is expected to rise...
Climate change mitigation in forests: Conflict, peacebuilding, and lessons for climate security
Abstract/Description Forests in low and middle-income countries are at the centre of climate change mitigation efforts. But these forests are also areas of high levels of insecurity and are found in fragile states with weak...
Climate Security and Policy Options in Japan
Climate security has been discussed in both academia and policy documents in the West. A key point that surfaces from these discussions is that the cooperation of non‐military organizations is essential for effective responses to...
Early Warning: How Iraq Can Adapt to Climate Change
Iraq is at high risk of suffering the worst effects of the climate crisis, including soaring temperatures and acute water scarcity. As land suitable for farming shrinks and rural jobs disappear, ordinary Iraqis are...
ConnexUs Thursday Talk Recording: Leveraging Data to Inform Responses to Climate Change Challenges
This ConnexUs Thursday Talk explored how data, particularly quantitative secondary data, can be used to better design programs responding to climate-related challenges in fragile and conflict-affected countries. We were joined by Beza Tesfaye, Director...
Gender, Climate & Security: Sustaining Inclusive Peace on the Frontlines of Climate Change
Executive Summary This report, published by UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN Women, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (UNDPPA), reveals the close links between gender, climate, and...
Heat and Hate, Climate Security and Farmer-Herder Conflicts in Africa
This paper investigates the impact of climate shocks on violence between herders and farmers by using geolocalized data on conflict events for all African countries over the 1997-2014 period. We find that a +1℃ increase...
Climate Change Adaptation and Peacebuilding in Africa
Climate change and security have been linked in multiple ways, although some sets of linkages have garnered more attention than others. This workshop focused on three areas of linkage that have dominated discussions of climate...
Addressing Climate: Security Toolkits for Action | ConnexUs Thursday Talk Recording
This ConnexUs Thursday Talk is part of the Climate Security: Finding Shared Solutions to Shared Challenges crowdsourced knowledge-sharing campaign hosted by USAID and ConnexUs that will be running from February to April 2023. The...
Addressing the climate-conflict nexus in fragile states
This study of five countries in sub-Saharan Africa finds that while climate variability is associated with the onset of conflict, improvements in local state capacity may enable responsiveness to climate-related challenges that give rise to...