Climate finance and peace—tackling the climate and humanitarian crisis
Authors: Peter Läderach, Julian Ramirez-Villegas, Giulia Caroli, Claudia Sadoff, Grazia Pacillo
Journal: The Lancet Planetary Health (2021)

2021's Conference of Parties, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26), is crucially important as governments—for the first time since the Paris Agreement—are expected to agree on concrete commitments and greater ambitions to limit global warming to 1·5°C. COP26 President-Designate Alok Sharma stated that delivery of US$100 billion in climate finance is going to be the key to whether the goals of COP26 succeed or fail. At the same time, people worldwide have started acknowledging the impacts of the climate crisis on peace and security—otherwise called the climate security nexus.1Läderach P Pacillo G Thornton P Osorio D Smith D Food systems for peace and security in a climate crisis.Lancet Planet Health. 2021; 5: e249-e250Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar, 2African UnionCommunique of the 984th meeting of the PSC held at the level of Heads of State and Government on 9 March 2021 on the theme: "Sustainable Peace in Africa: Climate Change and its Effects on Peace and Security in the Continent.https://reliefweb.int/report/world/communique-984th-meeting-psc-held-level-heads-state-and-government-9-march-2021-themeDate: 2021Date accessed: September 10, 2021Google Scholar The concern then becomes where and how objectives and investments in adaptation and peacebuilding can be aligned, and how trade-offs between climate finance, peace, and security can be minimised or avoided. An overlay of adaptation potential and the Global Peace Index (appendix pp 1–7) shows that most of the low-income countries in tropical areas experience a combination of peacebuilding and adaptation challenges, and, only in very few countries, one or the other priority dominates clearly (figure). In other words, most of the low-income countries in tropical areas are exposed and vulnerable to climate change, and these countries are also prone to fragility due to insecurity and conflict. Globally, 355 million households (about 1·3 billion people) are exposed to climate hazards and are, thus, in need of climate change adaptation; 40% of those (142 million households, or 527 million people) are in conflict-prone and fragile-prone areas. Furthermore, the number of households exposed to climate hazards is about six times greater in conflict-prone areas compared with more peaceful areas. The greatest opportunities to align adaptation and peacebuilding objectives and finance exist in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Philippines, Myanmar, and India. These countries have Global Peace Index values ranging from 2·4 to 3·4, and the number of climate-exposed households are in the range of 2·1 million to 11·4 million, with the exception of India, which has 79 million climate-exposed households. Besides these countries, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Niger, Zimbabwe, and Chad also show substantial opportunities to address both climate adaptation and peacebuilding, with Global Peace Index values above 2·4, but these countries have a lower number of potential beneficiaries, ranging from 1 million to 2 million households per country (appendix pp 2–6). Despite opportunities for action, climate finance has yet to be leveraged in a way that maximises synergies between climate adaptation and peace and produces the optimum co-benefits. Currently, adaptation investments insufficiently target countries at substantial risk of climate-driven instability and conflict. Notably, only two out of the top ten global recipients of adaptation finance—Niger and Ethiopia—are highly exposed to climate hazards and marked by low levels of peacefulness. The Green Climate Fund, the main climate funder to developing countries, has recently taken measures to address this imbalance and has approved four new projects to implement climate action in fragile states. This measure brings the total number of Green Climate Fund adaptation projects in fragile and conflict-affected contexts to 12 out of 63 projects globally.3Climate Funds UpdateData dashboard.https://climatefundsupdate.org/data-dashboard/Date: 2021Date accessed: September 10, 2021Google Scholar Although a growing focus is being given to fragile and crisis settings, climate funding still supports siloed responses and solutions that are not conflict-sensitive and context-sensitive.4Peters K Dupar M Opitz-Stapleton S et al.Climate change, conflict and fragility: an evidence review and recommendations for research and action. Report. ODI, London2020Google Scholar Conflict prevention and peacebuilding objectives are rarely featured in adaptation programming and, currently, very few projects promote integrated approaches to climate and conflict risks.5Mosello B Rüttinger L Linking adaptation and peacebuilding—lessons learned and the way forward.https://climate-security-expert-network.org/sites/climate-security-expert-network.com/files/documents/linking_adaptation_and_peacebuilding_lessons_learned_and_the_way_forward.pdfDate: 2020Date accessed: November 20, 2021Google Scholar If designed and implemented without consideration for conflict situations, adaptation strategies can inadvertently reinforce existing conflict dynamics or create new ones.6Tänzler D Maas A Carius A Climate change adaptation and peace.Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim. 2010; 1: 741-750Crossref Scopus (22) Google Scholar Adaption measures that do not consider conflict situations can indirectly increase conflict potential by affecting economic performances, undermining political stability, or fostering social inequalities and grievances.7Dabelko GD Herzer L Null S Parker M Sticklor R Backdraft: the conflict potential of climate change adaptation and mitigation. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC2013Google Scholar For instance, the Salma Dam project in Afghanistan has intensified group marginalisation and resource competition in the Zinda Jan district by restricting access to the shared water supply.8Krampe F Smith E S Hamidi M D Security implications of climate development in conflict-affected states implications of local-level effects of rural hydropower development on farmers in Herat.Polit Geogr. 2021; 90102454Crossref Scopus (2) Google Scholar These adaptation strategies ultimately result in negative feedback that precludes development and sustainable peace under a changing climate. Adaptation can therefore increase the risk and severity of conflict, and related socioeconomic costs can hinder adaptation efforts. However, a conflict-sensitive approach to adaptation might avoid an outbreak or a relapse of conflict and even facilitate building and sustaining peace, especially at the local level.9Babcicky P 2013. A conflict-sensitive approach to climate change adaptation.Peace Rev. 2013; 25: 480-488Crossref Scopus (6) Google Scholar The project by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN in Abyei, South Sudan, is an example of a conflict-sensitive approach to adaptation. The provision of community-based animal health services to both the Dinka Ngok and the Misseriya communities increased dialogue and trust between these conflicting ethnic groups, thereby reducing resource-related conflicts and facilitating peace.10Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations2017. Linking community-based animal health services with natural resource conflict mitigation in the Abyei Administrative Area. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome2017Google Scholar Thus, to prevent harmful impacts of adaptation, climate finance and adaptation programming should at a minimum apply the principle of do no harm, which includes promoting resilience and livelihood-based solutions without creating further tensions and conflicts. Public finance actors, such as the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environmental Facility, and the Adaptation Fund, can and should directly contribute to peace and stability and address drivers of conflict, reinforce peace drivers, and where possible contribute to sustaining peace. At a minimum, conflict prevention and peacebuilding objectives must be included in the environmental and social safeguards. A more proactive peacebuilding approach would be to increase funds to tackle national and transboundary natural resource management issues that are at the root cause of conflict, while, for example, also delivering technologies that increase water use-efficiency at the local level. It is also crucial to ease entry barriers for fragile and conflict-affected countries, which are often automatically excluded from most common climate funds due to the scarcity of historical data to support their applications. At policy level, guidelines are needed to align adaptation and peacebuilding efforts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change National Communications, and National Adaptation Plans. CGIAR and other academic institutions must actively support finance actors to mainstream climate security analysis and programming guidelines into daily operations. We declare no competing interests. Editorial note: the Lancet Group takes a neutral position with respect to territorial claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Download .pdf (.28 MB) Help with pdf files Supplementary appendix