Conflict and Climate Change
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It would therefore be important to include these groups in any such arrangement; indeed experience has shown that indigenous peoples offer better forest protection than government-run programs (Nepstad and others 2006). The rush to produce biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels also has the potential to cause conflict. If the cultivation of biofuel crops displaces food crops, that could lead to food price hikes, perhaps food insecurity, and potentially disgruntled subsistence farmers who have been displaced from their land. Beyond mentioning these few examples, however, we do not address the conflictual potential of climate change mitigation. To sum up, climate change and variability may undermine human security for certain groups, but whether it leads to violent conflict depends on other key socioeconomic and political conditions—most importantly on how it is perceived and communicated by key political actors. Most studies of climate-related factors have focused on physical consequences, such as soil degradation, deforestation, and water scarcity. Inasmuch as these physical consequences seem inevitable, it would be beneficial to expand the focus to encompass the political economy conditions that might generate conflict. Instead of stressing the environmental scarcity aspect, a fruitful social perspective would place more emphasis on opportunities that environmental change presents, as well as on the sociopolitical channels that translate environmental consequences into different outcomes across various groups.
Policy Perspectives Climate change does not seem to call for an immediate change in policies or for specific programs in the area of conflict prevention for the time being. With respect to conflict, the focus should be on considering the political economy dimension because the political economy that (a) dictates the policies that can be implemented to address the adverse socioeconomic consequences of climate change; (b) produces the structures that reproduce and perpetuate adverse conflictual or nonconflictual outcomes from climate change; and (c) influences the risk that existing socioeconomic factors become conduits for violent conflict. Because multiple channels exist through which climate change might affect conflict, policies need to address the consequences of climate change on several fronts. Doing that will reduce the risk of violent conflict and ensure that conflicts are resolved in ways that do not jeopardize key development objectives. Policies can either seek to prevent the adverse socioeconomic consequences of climate change from turning into