Abstract
BackgroundClimate change poses credible threats to the livelihoods of many. This paper addresses how climate change adaptation can help counter the increased risk of violent conflict that is associated with these climatic changes. Extant climate-conflict links however, involve a complex interaction of many factors that mediate the impact of climate change. Thus, adaptation methods should not focus simply on the direct impacts of these changes.MethodsThis paper, using the Systematic Literature Review method, conducts an analysis of the climate-conflict and climate adaptation literature covering 46 papers, with a geographical restriction of Africa and focusing on the quantitative comparative literature.ResultsThis SLR had two key aims, first to understand how links and common areas of understanding between the climate-conflict and climate adaptation fields of research could inform future empirical quantitative research into the notion of climate adaptation as conflict prevention. And secondly, how future quantitative comparative climate conflict research could be informed. It suggests a Vulnerability Model that assists in understanding how vulnerability, understood through the lens of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, can provide researchers and policy makers with the various factors, both direct and indirect, which can identify where violent conflict might occur. Simultaneously, it illustrates what factors influence the adaptation needs of an agricultural community and hence how adaptation could reduce the risk of future violent conflict. Future quantitative comparative climate-conflict research could also benefit by using disaggregated sub-national data, focusing on agricultural communities using variables that draw on the Vulnerability Model.
Highlights
Climate change poses credible threats to the livelihoods of many
This paper, based on an Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of 46 articles centred on the climate-conflict and climate adaptation fields of research, has revealed a pattern and a key link between them that supports the aim of assessing the potential for climate adaptation to function as a pathway to conflict prevention
The systematic methodology inherent in the SLR revealed the concept of vulnerability as a key in the literature to understanding how future research into climate adaptation and conflict prevention should progress
Summary
Data synthesis and summary of results The synthesis of data involves aggregating the articles and their findings to obtain a general overview of the field(s), whilst relating information and patterns across the studies that would not be clear from reading the individual texts [16]. Analysis and selection of data relies to some extent on the subjective interpretation of the author, indicating infiltration of bias which is a weakness of the SLR method, yet, this methodology only minimises bias as opposed to eradicating it [35]. For both fields of literature, all papers were classified, and data extracted according to their scale of analysis (national/sub-national), non-climatic variables and climatic variables measured, effect on conflict risk and effectiveness of adaptation methods, group type studied, analysis of vulnerability among several other relevant categories. It is hoped that this approach will provide some sense of research and policy outcomes for environmental peace-building and conflict prevention, rather than just describing the field
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