Carl-Friedrich Schleußner|Jonathan F. Donges|Reik V. Donner|Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
Armed-conflict risks enhanced by climate-related disasters in ethnically fractionalized countries
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research|Climate Analytics|Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research|Stockholm Resilience Centre|Stockholm University|Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research|Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research|Santa Fe Institute
social political tensions keep fueling armed conflicts around world although conflict result individual contextspecific mixture interconnected factors ethnicity appears play prominent almost ubiquitous role many overall state affairs likely exacerbated anthropogenic climate change particular climaterelated natural disasters ethnic divides might serve predetermined conflict lines case rapidly emerging societal tensions arising disruptive events like natural disasters hypothesize climaterelated disaster occurrence enhances armedconflict outbreak risk ethnically fractionalized countries using event coincidence analysis test hypothesis based data armedconflict outbreaks climaterelated natural disasters period 19802010 globally find coincidence rate 9 regarding armedconflict outbreak disaster occurrence heat waves droughts analysis also reveals period question 23 conflict outbreaks ethnically highly fractionalized countries robustly coincide climatic calamities although report evidence climaterelated disasters act direct triggers armed conflicts disruptive nature events seems play ethnically fractionalized societies particularly tragic way observation important implications future security policies several worlds conflictprone regions including north central africa well central asia exceptionally vulnerable anthropogenic climate change characterized deep ethnic divides