Climate Change and Security in West Africa
Publisher: Igarapé Institute
Author(s): Peter Schmidt and Robert Muggah
Date: 2021
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Land, Livelihoods, Renewable Resources
West Africa, and the Sahel in particular, are believed to be exceedingly sensitive to climate change. That said, data quality and forecasting are uneven. There is detailed statistical information on temperature fluctuations and patterns of rainfall in countries north of the Gambia, but similar data are sparse to the south. Notwithstanding the variability of data availability and quality, the relationships between the region’s changing climate, disruption of livelihoods and migration, deepening food insecurity, social unrest and violence are difficult to ignore. This report provides a short summary of several actual and potential threats of climate change on security in selected areas of West Africa. It serves as a background paper for the preparation of a data visualization that will be disseminated to United Nations member states in late 2020. The paper is not designed to be comprehensive, but rather to inform the production of a shortlist of data “layers” that will be featured on the EarthTime platform, an initiative of Carnegie Mellon University’s Create Lab.