German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

A Heated Debate: Climate Change and Conflict in Africa

Author(s): Christian von Soest
German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) (2020)
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 Focus | AFRICA
Dr. Christian von Soest
Christian von Soest Lead Research Fellow
christian.vonsoest@giga-hamburg.de
A Heated Debate: Climate Change and
GIGA German Institute of Global

Conflict in Africa and Area Studies

Leibniz-Institut für Globale
und Regionale Studien
GIGA Focus | Africa | Number 2 | April 2020 | ISSN 1862-3603 Neuer Jungfernstieg 21
20354 Hamburg

The worst drought in a century in Southern Africa at the end of last year www.giga-hamburg.de/giga-focus

slowed the iconic Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwean–Zambian border to a

rill, fuelling renewed discussion about climate change. It also epitomised
the potential repercussions of the phenomenon for livelihoods and security
on the African continent. However, current research only sees a weak con-
nection between climate and violent conflict.

•• Sub-Saharan Africa is the world region most affected by climate change. Parts
of East Africa, the Sahel, and Southern Africa have been the most severely
impacted on. Existing research largely sees climate change as a “threat multi-
plier,” and perceives high poverty and low state capability as more influential
drivers of conflict.

•• General assessments of how climate affects conflict mask important differ­

ences: In some parts of Africa, extreme weather events (such as droughts) and
rising temperatures threaten the most vulnerable already – namely, those that
are poor and rely on rain-fed agriculture. Pastoralist agricultural production
and pronounced differences between ethnic groups are particularly dangerous
risk factors. Yet uncertainty about climate’s precise effects is still high.

•• Under certain conditions, climate change can lead to increased conflict but
also cooperation in affected communities across Africa. New research needs to
investigate more thoroughly the mechanisms underlying how individuals and
communities react to weather extremes and long-term climatic changes. It is of
particular relevance to understand how increased societal cooperation as well
as adequate state policies can help overcome climate change’s adverse effects
among those most vulnerable people.

Policy Implications
Following up on its last report from 2014, in 2022 the climate–conflict link will
be re-evaluated for the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Assessment Report. Better understanding the pathways that lead to violent con-
flict and focusing on the most vulnerable members of society, namely those who
directly rely on rain-fed agriculture, is a necessary precondition for devising ad-
equate policies to tame climate change’s adverse effects on security. Supporting
the mitigation of climate change’s detrimental effects for the most vulnerable in
Photo: Boris Rostami

Africa should be a key focus for European and German Africa policy.

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Climate Change: Increased Competition over Scarce Resources

Recent media and non-governmental organisation reports indicate that competition

over land and other scarce resources is increasingly turning violent in many Afri-
can countries. According to Amnesty International (2018), more than 3,600 people
died as part of conflicts between farmers and herders in Nigeria from the beginning
of 2016 and October 2018. The organisation links these violent clashes to competi-
tion over land, water, and pastures. Similarly, in the border region of ­Kenya, South
Sudan, and Uganda struggles between pastoralist groups seem to have intensified.
In a recent article, The Economist (2019) directly connects the violence of Boko
Haram in Nigeria to diminishing livelihoods and the corresponding susceptibility
to radical ideologies caused by the shrinking of Lake Chad: “As the lake receded,
people moved towards it, plagued by swarms of tsetse flies. Herdspeople, farmers
and fisherfolk competed for access to the shrunken supply of water.”
These extreme weather events epitomise a general trend across sub-Saharan Af-
rica. The world region’s environmental conditions are changing already, and climate
change will have further profound consequences. Surface temperatures have in-
creased by 0.5°C over the last 50 years across most parts of Africa, and are projected
to increase faster compared to the rest of the world. This will have three major conse-
quences: First, droughts have already become more frequent and intense – analysts
expect them to get worse, especially in Central and Southern Africa. Second, rainfall
will become increasingly unpredictable; more extreme rain will lead to worse floods
on dry soils. Third and finally, desertification will reduce the arable land available
to farmers and pastoralists, and will thereby increase resource scarcity and envir­
onmental stress. Higher temperatures and droughts will reduce crop yields, and
have adverse effects on the health of the livestock – most notably cattle – people
depend on.
Ultimately, the impacts of climate change threaten the food security and the
livelihoods of affected communities. However, the nexus between this changed cli-
mate and violent conflict in Africa is less straightforward than media reports im-
ply. To start with, there are different forms of conflict – most prominently, “armed
conflict” between the state and rebel groups or “non-state conflict” between com-
munities (for instance between herders and farmers). While increased competition
over resources can – under specific conditions – trigger violent conflict between
communities, there is less evidence in the literature for it having the same effect on
armed conflict between the state and rebel groups. In addition, there are multiple
potential pathways. For instance, there remains uncertainty about the level and ef-
fect of environmentally induced migration. On the one hand, people leaving regions
that have become uninhabitable will increase the pressure on arable land and water
sources in the areas they head to. On the other, out-migration also reduces the en-
vironmental stress in regions strongly affected by climate change. Thus, violence is
by no means inevitable.
Based on existing analyses, Figure 1 below presents some of climate change’s
potential effects on violent conflict in Africa. It is not meant to be an exhaustive
list, rather to demonstrate the multiple potential pathways from the former to the
latter – as well as the complexity of their relationship.

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 Figure 1
Potential Pathways
from Climate Change
to Violent Conflict in
Africa
Source: Author’s own
representation, based on
current research (see, for
instance, Brzoska and
Fröhlich 2016).

In addition, geographical variation is considerable when it comes to the risks of

climate change. According to predictions, two regions in Africa are especially vul-
nerable to climate-related (violent) conflict: East Africa, and the arid lands in West
Africa lying below the Sahara Desert, the Sahel. Here, the climate could change
drastically and competition over shrinking fertile land be particularly pronounced.
What factors exactly put these two regions at particular risk?
•• The people in both regions strongly depend on natural resources for their liveli-
hoods, especially rain-fed farmland and pastures.
•• The high prevalence of pastoral communities in East Africa and a combination
of pastoral and agricultural livelihoods (pastoralists versus herders) in the Sa-
hel might create antagonisms between different communities.
•• A rapidly growing population in the last decades has raised demand for already-
scarce arable land.
•• State capacity to adapt to and cope with the effects of climate change is low in
the two regions. Widespread poverty and a history of violence in many parts of
both the Sahel and East Africa pose additional risks.
•• The Sahel especially is expected to see further increased weather extremes.
Rainfall there varies significantly, which leads to more frequent and intense
droughts and floods.

Figure 2
Droughts and Violent
Conflicts in Africa
(2016)
Source: Centre for En-
vironmental Data Analy-
sis (Peng et al. 2019) and
UCDP’s Georeferenced
Event Dataset (Sundberg
and Melander 2013).
Note: Droughts are
measured using the
Standardized Precipita-
tion and Evapotranspi-
ration Index accumulat-
ed across all 12 months
of the year (the main
trends hold for three-
and five-year averages
up until 2016). Areas
coloured red indicate
unusually dry conditions
over the year. Extremely
arid areas, such as the
Sahara Desert, are not
covered.

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Figure 2 above depicts the regions in Africa that were hit by severe droughts in
2016, the last year for which comprehensive data is available, as well as the inci-
dence of deadly violence as assessed by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP,
incidents where at least one individual was killed by political violence; data also for
the year 2016). The goal here is not to imply a direct causal connection between cli-
mate change and violent conflict, but to highlight their complex relationship: While
there is a clear geographical overlap between substantial droughts and lethal vio-
lence (with the Sahel and parts of East Africa being hotspots for both drought and
violent conflict), a number of conflict events did not coincide with droughts in this
particular year.

Climate and Conflict: A Heated Debate

The relationship between climate change and violent conflict is complex, and con-
tested. The scientific findings are not as clear as some media reports make the re-
lationship out to be. In fact, there has been a heated debate within the scientific
community about whether and how climatic conditions substantially increase the
risk of violent conflict. In 2009, Burke et al. published a highly influential paper
in which they claimed a strong historical link between civil war and high tempera-
tures in Africa. They combined their findings with climate projections, estimating
that by 2030 armed conflict will have increased by 54 per cent – with an additional
393,000 battle-related deaths caused by rising temperatures.
Other scholars have strongly criticised these alarming findings. Buhaug (2010)
took issue with the operationalisation of conflicts, the narrow time horizon, and
with the statistical methods used, and showed that the conflict-driving effect is ex-
tremely sensitive to model specifications. Consequently, he concludes that “[t]he
simple fact is this: climate characteristics and variability are unrelated to short-
term variations in civil war risk in sub-Saharan Africa. The primary causes of civil
war are political, not environmental” (Buhaug 2010: 16481).
Part of the reason for this controversy is also that studies use different thresh-
olds for “violent conflict.” Most assess 25 fatalities, the standard number in conflict
research, while others work with the measure of one killed person; other research-
ers besides focus on rebel and communal violence, or simply citizens’ support for
violence. Sampling bias in case selection is considered a further problem (Adams
et al. 2018). However, the current consensus seems to be that – compared to other
factors – climate and climate change only exert a weak effect on violent conflict,
be it non-state or in particular the armed conflict between rebels and the state. In
order to identify the points of agreement within the scientific community, Mach et
al. (2019) recently conducted an expert elicitation process. These experts estimated
that to date climate-related factors have affected only about 5 per cent of intrastate
conflicts. They conclude: “Climate variability and/or change is low on the ranked
list of the most influential conflict drivers across experiences to date, and the ex-
perts rank it as the most uncertain in its influence” (Mach et al. 2019: 2).
Another perspective even argues that the joint exposure to environmental haz-
ards creates an opportunity for enhanced cooperation. Going by this argument,
natural disasters can create a “community of fate” wherein societal differences are
superseded by the need to overcome the damage caused by a catastrophe. For ex-

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ample, a recent study showed that droughts in East Africa increased the social trust
within and across ethnic groups when all groups are equally affected (De Juan and
Hänze 2019). Another argument on “environmental peacebuilding” extends this
perspective to the process of peace-making between states. Here, environmental
problems act as a “foot in the door” to further cooperation. Again, this phenomenon
is most evident in Africa (Ide 2018).

Underlying Mechanisms: How Climate Change Affects Conflict

Not only do scholars consider climate’s general effects on violent conflict to be low
compared to other factors, there is also considerable uncertainty about the underly-
ing mechanisms that create this connection. Highly aggregated research trying to
link climate variability and conflict has often provided unclear results. Climate’s
effects are always conditional on further political, economic, and social factors.
Consequently, there have been prominent calls in the scientific literature to more
thoroughly investigate how and when climate change affects conflict. We need to
know why in some communities suffering weather extremes violent conflict emerg-
es while in others it does not.
For instance, the research findings on worsening livelihood conditions remain
ambivalent. Buhaug et al. (2015) find no link between reduced agricultural output
and violent conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, even in the countries where rainfall vari-
ability has the biggest impact on food production (similar for Syria, Fröhlich 2016).
However, a meta-analysis demonstrates that worsening livelihood conditions in
East Africa increase the risk of livestock raiding and communal conflict (van Baalen
and Mobjörk 2018). A second prominent but hitherto little understood pathway
linking climate variation to conflict is migration. Environmental stress can trigger
the decision to migrate, and in turn increase competition over land in the receiving
regions. In this sense, migration is both a way to adapt to changing environmental
conditions and a potential driver of conflict.
State policies are one – if not the most important – factor that significantly
influence the risk climate change poses, for instance shaping the effects of environ-
mental migration. While there is an urgent need for more systematic research on
the interplay between climatic changes and state policies, we do have evidence that
the wrong policies can be devastating. In Nigeria, climate-induced land degradation
and increasing violence in the north of the country have forced pastoralists south,
where they clash repeatedly with farmers. The encroachment of farmland blocks
traditional migration routes, while farmers suffer from the damage that livestock
inflict on their crops. In Nigeria’s Benue State, an anti-grazing law has exacerbated
already-high tensions between farmers and herders. This law permits cattle to only
graze on established ranches, effectively outlawing traditional Fulani pastoralism.
This prompted violent attacks from Fulani herders that not only led to the killing
of dozens within Benue State but also in neighbouring states, after herders were
driven out of the former (International Crisis Group 2018).
Botswana’s government, on the other hand, devises proactive plans to adjust
to climate change. “In Botswana, where drought is frequent, President Mokgweetsi
Masisi said the government plans to stop calling it an emergency and instead make
drought relief part of the national budget.” According to media reports, the coun-

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try’s president said, this “Drought Management Strategy […] would classify drought
as a permanent feature in our budget plans” (source for both: Dube 2019).
State policies can also strengthen social processes that help to ameliorate the
influence of climatic changes on violent conflict – while lacking state capacity
and divisive government policies are considered important risk factors (Salehyan
2008). For instance, in rural Kenya, interethnic community dialogue undermines
the progression from droughts to violence. Where citizens reported that such inter-
community dialogue exists, worsening climatic conditions reduced the willingness
of individuals to support violence. The same effect was found regarding traditional
and governmental rules that regulate access to and the use of water and pastures.
“Dedha” is an instructive example of traditional rules in northern Kenya. It estab-
lishes that while wells in the area are organised by only one person, no pastoralist
can be turned away from accessing them and elders have the task of arbitrating in
potential conflicts over use and access (Linke et al. 2018).

What We Should Do to Reduce Climate Change’s Adverse Effects

As outlined, identifying causes and mechanisms is a necessary precondition for

designing promising policies to tame climate change’s adverse effects on human
security across Africa. Currently, scholarly agreement on the required individual
measures to make societies more resilient against violent conflict amplified or even
triggered by climate change is low, while uncertainties are high. However, decreas-
ing the vulnerability to weather extremes and integrating climate change as a risk
factor into efforts for peacebuilding are especially important. International devel-
opment assistance should focus on building state capacity and decreasing vulner-
ability among those that rely on rain-fed agriculture and cattle herding, particularly
in the Sahel and parts of East Africa. These individuals are already suffering from
increased droughts and competition over scarce resources. Climate change will fur-
ther threaten their livelihoods in the coming years. Particularly important measures
to counter the adverse effects faced by these individuals include (Mach et al. 2019):
•• Improve food security by stocking up reserves and keeping prices stable during
times of drought.
•• Buffer income-shocks by providing support and securing access to credits for
farmers, and by improving irrigation systems to reduce dependency on rain-fed
agriculture.
•• Encourage economic diversification within (use of different crops) and beyond
the agricultural sector, for instance by providing specific support and credit
schemes to small-scale farmers.
•• Strengthen state capacity and create specific government agencies to provide
equal levels of support to herders and pastoralists affected by climate change.
Strengthen mechanisms to mitigate antagonisms between ethnic groups and
communities who find themselves competing over scarce resources.
•• Invest more into research on the mechanisms that link climate and conflict in
affected communities, and in knowledge transfer to help devise strategies to
overcome climate-related conflicts.

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•• Pay attention and react to the impact of climate change on the allocation of
scarce resources, and to the situation of marginalised groups. Strengthen local-
level government institutions and conflict-resolution mechanisms.
•• Enable “adaptive migration” by way of new institutions for regulating environ-
mental migration, by strengthening consultative mechanisms between incom-
ing immigrants and citizens in the “receiving” areas, as well as by enhancing
support for both.
European and German Africa policy are extremely well placed to support the re-
alisation of these measures to tackle climate change’s adverse effects for the most
vulnerable in Africa. They also represent an innovative way to further strengthening
the link between “climate and security,” as a trademark feature of German foreign
policy.

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About the Author

Dr. Christian von Soest is a lead research fellow at the GIGA Institute of African
Affairs (IAA) and head of the GIGA Research Programme 2 “Peace and Security.”
His work focuses on sanctions and other foreign policy interventions, conflict pro-
cesses, and the domestic and international politics of authoritarian regimes. He
leads the GIGA’s contribution to the project B3: “Conflict and Cooperation at the
Climate-Security Nexus,” forming part of the “Climate, Climate Change, and Soci-
ety” (CLICCS) Excellence Cluster of the University of Hamburg (www.cliccs.uni-
hamburg.de/research/theme-b/b3.html).
christian.vonsoest@giga-hamburg.de, www.giga-hamburg.de/en/team/soest

The author is extremely grateful to Niklas Hänze for the substantial research he
contributed to this GIGA Focus; he also created Figure 2. In his B.A. thesis at the
University of Osnabrück, Niklas Hänze has focused on the relationship between
climate change and political trust. He has also worked on “Climate and Cohesion –
the Effects of Individual and Group-Level Drought Exposure on Intra-Ethnic and
Inter-Ethnic Trust” together with Alexander De Juan.

Related GIGA Research

GIGA Research Programme 2 “Peace and Security” examines peace and conflict
processes in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and investigates
international violence and security trends. Research Programme 2 scholars spe-
cifically study: (1) how social identities and ideology intensify or reduce insecurity
and conflict; (2) which institutional arrangements (such as power-sharing govern-
ments, security-sector reforms, and transitional-justice arrangements) help to pro-
mote peace; and, (3) how external actors affect peace and conflict dynamics, and
what security implications their interventions have at the local, national, regional,
and international levels. The IAA examines, among other things, political regimes,
economic-transformation processes, and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition to the GIGA’s contribution to the University of Hamburg’s CLICCS
Excellence Cluster, further research at the Institute focuses on the forced migration

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that is often induced by environmental changes: Migration Governance and Asylum
Crises (MAGYC), Work Package “Comparing Crises,” European Commission – Ho-
rizon 2020, led by Dr. Christiane Fröhlich.

Related GIGA Publications

Bank, André, and Christiane Fröhlich (2018), Forced Migration in the Global South:
Reorienting the Debate, GIGA Focus Global, 3, June, www.giga-hamburg.de/en/
publication/forced-migration-in-the-global-south-reorienting-the-debate.
Brzoska, Michael, and Christiane Fröhlich (2016), Climate Change, Migration and
Violent Conflict: Vulnerabilities, Pathways and Adaptation Strategies, in: Migra-
tion and Development, 5, 2, 190–210, https://doi.org/10.1080/21632324.2015.
1022973.
Casarões, Guilherme, and Daniel Flemes (2019), Brazil First, Climate Last: Bol-
sonaro’s Foreign Policy, GIGA Focus Latin America, 5, September, www.giga-
hamburg.de/en/publication/brazil-first-climate-last-bolsonaros-foreign-policy.
Fröhlich, Christiane, and Tobias Ide (2019), Does Climate Change Drive Violence,
Conflict and Human Migration?, in: Mike Hulme (ed.), Contemporary Climate
Change Debates: A Student Primer, Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 51–64.
Haaß, Felix, Sabine Kurtenbach, and Julia Strasheim (2016), Fleeing the Peace:
Emigration after Civil War, GIGA Focus Global, 2, May, www.giga-hamburg.de/
en/publication/fleeing-the-peace-emigration-after-civil-war.
Klepp, Silja, and Christiane Fröhlich (2019), Migration and Conflict in a Global
Warming Era: A Political Understanding of Climate Change, in: Social Sciences,
Special Issue (guest editors).
Lakemann, Tabea, and Malte Lierl (2020), Ten Thinks to Watch in Africa in 2020,
GIGA Focus Africa, 1, January, www.giga-hamburg.de/en/publication/ten-
things-to-watch-in-africa-in-2020.
Lay, Jann, and Sebastian Renner (2016), “Not on the Paris Track”: Climate Protec-
tion Efforts in Developing Countries, GIGA Focus Global, 8, December, www.
giga-hamburg.de/en/publication/not-on-the-paris-track-climate-protection-ef-
forts-in-developing-countries.
Prys-Hansen, Miriam (2019), Elections in India: A Litmus Test for Global Climate
Policy, GIGA Focus Global, 2, June, www.giga-hamburg.de/en/publication/
wahlen-in-indien-lackmustest-für-die-globale-klimapolitik.
von Soest, Christian (2018), The Contradictory Logics of International Interven-
tion, GIGA Focus Global, 4, October, www.giga-hamburg.de/en/publication/the-
contradictory-logics-of-international-intervention.

GIGA FOCUS | AFRICA | NO. 2 | APRIL 2020 9

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