Environmental Cooperation Can Facilitate Peace between States

Mar 5, 2018 | Tobias Ide
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Environmental stress and climate change can accelerate instability and conflict—but shared environmental problems can also be a source of cooperation and facilitate peacemaking between states. Transnational environmental problems are common threats and often cross national boundaries, requiring international cooperation to address. In turn, this cooperation can provide a good entry point for building trust and cooperation. In a recent multi-method analysis published in the Journal of Peace Research, I find that cooperation around transboundary water and conservation facilitates reconciliation between two rival states. To use an ecologically unfriendly metaphor, we can kill two birds — environmental degradation and international tensions — with one stone: environmental peacemaking. However, we can only leverage the peacemaking effect of environmental cooperation under certain conditions.