Avoiding “Backdraft” in Climate Policy - When Mitigation or Adaptation Actions Spark Conflict
Publisher: Columbia Climate School Earth Institute
Author(s): Geoff Dabelko, Stacy VanDeveer, and Kimberly R. Marion Suiseeya
Date: 2022
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Conflict Prevention, Extractive Resources
In 2013, a groundbreaking report from the Environmental Change & Security Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center warned that efforts to cut planet-heating pollution and climate impacts could spark conflict, undercutting development and global security.
The “backdraft” dynamic described in that report has since been echoed in concepts like “maladaptation” and “mal-mitigation” - where climate policies produce adverse impacts on marginalized or politically excluded populations.
This year the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has produced a report, Environment of Peace, laying out a toolkit and tactics for limiting backdraft.
The report couldn’t come at a better time. Climate backdraft is intensifying, for instance as developed countries that built wealth on fossil fuel burning begin cutting off finance for gas extraction in poor nations with no history of adding to climate change.