CLIMATE CHANGE, CONFLICT AND FRAGILITY – Understanding the linkages, shaping effective responses

The consequences of climate change, the incidence of violent conflict and the corrosive effects of state fragility are all major problems. To take them on together is to take aim at a very difficult target. But it is necessary because these problems are not isolated from each other. At the same time, the fact that they are linked problems helps identify linked solutions that benefit from synergies and that have an impact on several targets at once. Starting with the irreducible uncertainties of how the interlinkages can be expected to operate, this paper has set out a policy goal, backed up by five policy objectives that together constitute a coherent agenda:

1. Adaptation to climate change needs to be conflict-sensitive. In fragile and conflict-affected contexts, all interventions must respond to the needs of the people, involve them in consultation, take account of power distribution and social order, and avoid pitting groups against each other.

2. Peacebuilding needs to be climate-proof. For example, post-conflict reconstruction and the reintegration of ex-combatants into their villages must take account of the long-term viability of the land and natural resources available for lives and jobs.

3. Shifts towards a low-carbon economy must be supportive of development and peace. For example, there must be no repeat of the rapid move to biofuels, which not only reduced food availability, but also threatened to drive millions of people off the land.

4. Steps must be taken to strengthen poor countries’ social capacity to understand and manage climate and conflict risks.

5. Greater efforts are needed to plan for and cope peacefully with climate-related migration. These objectives need modes of implementation that are directly informed by the analysis, drawing on the best of development practice. By briefly illustrating how this would look in practice, this paper has also attempted to communicate a sense that these tasks are feasible – demanding, certainly, but distinctly achievable. In essence, they require two fundamental shifts: in the way institutions are organised, and in the way interlinkages are addressed.

First, institutions responsible for climate change adaptation – be they under the UNFCCC architecture, international financial institutions, development agencies or peacebuilding organisations – need to ensure that their internal systems and structures promote adaptation even where there is state fragility or conflict risk. In these complex and delicate situations, adaptation must do no harm, and ideally help the goal of peace along its way. For this to be possible, institutions must restructure in such a way as to maximise the participation of ordinary people and build accountable and transparent public institutions. Second, strategies must adapt to meet the combined challenge of climate change, conflict risk and state fragility. It is wrong to imply that henceforth there will be old-style development with adaptation on top. It may be that there will be a continuum from development activities that are not affected by climate change to development activities whose entire purpose is adaptation,52 but overall policy and strategy will present a new form of development. That means development assistance will need to adapt too.

Conclusion

A crucial step towards these objectives and the appropriate modes of implementation is a largescale systematic study of adaptation costs. Current estimates vary widely and are charged of being so short of the mark that they will not very helpful to planners. They ignore costs of climate change impacts against which adaptation – as presently conceived – cannot protect people, such as those that stem from elite resource capture and discriminatory regulations on land rights. A comprehensive and holistic assessment and costing of adaptation is a priority if we are to have any hope that climate change adaptation can reduce the risk of conflict and fragility. It remains to be calculated whether the new form of development is (or can be permitted to be) more expensive than the outlay to which donors are already committed. But it seems likely that much and probably most expenditure on adaptation will simply be indistinguishable from expenditure on development because the activities will be fused. It is in the context of this challenging agenda and these practical considerations that the next steps on an uncertain road need to be designed.

Source: CLIMATE CHANGE, CONFLICT AND FRAGILITY – Understanding the linkages, shaping effective responses

Authors: Dan Smith & Janani Vivekananda

Date: November 2009

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