Climate Change: The Link Between Armed Conflict and Climate Change Just Got a Bit Stronger

Jul 26, 2016 | Alejandro Dávila Fragoso, ThinkProgress
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Social scientists have for several decades tried to understand what makes a country experience conflict, with poverty, income inequality, weak governance, and ethnic animosity making up the long list of compounding factors at play. As human-caused climate change brings a rise in extreme weather events, scientists have now increasingly looked into the climate as another significant driver of conflict. On Monday, a study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research reported that climate disasters increase the likelihood of armed conflict outbreaks in highly ethnically divided societies, though researchers didn’t find a direct triggering effect.