Governance in Focus: Insights from the International Expert Forum on Climate Change and Conflict

Jul 28, 2016 | Austin Miles
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The International Expert Forum (IEF) is a series of seminars meant to facilitate dialogue between experts and policymakers on peace and security. Meeting in Stockholm this past May, the forum explored the connections between environmental issues, peacebuilding, and conflict while considering how environmental governance can aid in peacebuilding. The summary brief produced after the forum provides a useful snapshot of a fast-changing field of study.

While climate change and environmental degradation are frequently assumed to cause conflict, real-world situations demonstrate the links are more complicated than often thought. Research by Elisabeth Gilmore from the University of Maryland shows poor governance may be the catalyst that allows environmental factors, such as the overdrawing of natural resources or climate change, to give rise to conflict. Inequitable legal systems, abuses of executive power, and/or widespread corruption can lead to detrimental coping strategies that disregard the need to increase resilience and adaptation – or worse, do more harm than good. Such governance failings can also result in overexploitation of natural resources, unjust distribution of resources and capital, and illegal trade. These factors in turn drive instability and conflict.