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Climate Change Will Increase Risk of Violent Conflict, Researchers Warn

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Climate Change Will Increase Risk of Violent Conflict, Researchers Warn

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Inside Climate News | Neela Banerjee | 2019

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Stanford convened top experts in climate and conflict with a wide range of views to see where they agree about climate change's impact on global security.

Worsening climate change will increase the risk of future violent conflict within countries, a group of top researchers representing an array of viewpoints said Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.

The study, "Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict," tries to address some longstanding disagreements among climate scientists, political scientists, historians and other experts about what role, if any, climate change has played in internal conflicts over the last 100 years. Stanford researchers took the unusual step of convening 11 of the most experienced and cited experts on the topic to resolve their assessments of climate change's impact on global security.

Working together, the experts concluded that climate change so far has not played a large role in stoking conflict, overshadowed instead by other factors such as poor governance and weak economic development. But they agreed that climate change will play a far greater role in destabilizing countries as the planet warms.

There was "strong agreement that the risks go up with more climate change," said Katharine Mach, director of the Stanford Environment Assessment Facility and the lead author of the study in a video supplement to the report. "But some of the biggest uncertainties are how and why."

Rather than wars between nations, the Stanford study focused on internal conflicts, because there have been far more of them in modern history, killing anywhere from dozens of people to hundreds of thousands, Mach said.

Still, domestic armed clashes, which include genocide and civil war, often spill beyond borders and destabilize entire regions.

U.S. Military Sees a 'Threat Multiplier'

The relationship between climate change and armed conflict, even when confined to one country, is complicated, and it's hard to tease apart the effects of extreme weather from other factors that push a society toward violence. But U.S. military and intelligence agencies have long considered climate change to be a "threat multiplier," the factor that could tip into violence those states already staggering under the weight of other problems.

For instance, a drought exacerbated by climate change in a country where the government fails to provide for its people, water is already scarce and relations between tribes and communities are fraught could lead to local clashes over water and, ultimately, broader internal conflict.

In a 2015 report to Congress, the Pentagon pointed to the Syrian civil war as an example of how climate change can aggravate the fragility of a nation already riddled with tensions and poor governance. At the time of the Arab Spring in 2010, Syria was already under great stress. The authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad was unpopular, and an influx of more than 1 million Iraqi refugees strained basic services.

At the same time, the worst drought in 500 years had shriveled large swaths of rural Syria, a country long plagued by water scarcity. Thousands of Syrians moved from farms into towns and cities. The migration contributed to the instability, which erupted into uprisings and, eventually, a cataclysmic civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people died and waves of refugees moved through the Middle East and into Europe and shook the political order as far as Germany.

Trump Administration Still Pushes Denial

Despite the concerns of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, President Donald Trump has made his National Security Council the hub of an effort to undermine acceptance of climate science. Trump, a staunch climate denier, appointed former physicist and climate denialist William Happer to the NSC to undercut the intelligence community's integration of climate science into its threat assessments.

The Stanford analysis arrives in the wake of news that the White House tried to prevent a senior State Department intelligence expert from testifying last week about the link between climate change and global security at a hearing on the topic held by the House Intelligence Committee. The official, Rod Schoonover, ultimately testified, but Trump advisors took the rare step of withholding Schoonover's written testimony from the Congressional Record. A copy of the written testimony, laden with critical comments from Happer, was published by The New York Times over the weekend.

In his oral testimony and what was revealed in the leaked written report, Schoonover bluntly described the scenarios that climate change could catalyze. No country will be spared damage from climate change, he said, but some will deal with it better than others. Much of the planet is "especially vulnerable," he said, including sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South, Central and Southeast Asia.

"Most countries, if not all, are already unable to fully respond to the risks posed by 14 climate-linked hazards," Schoonover told the committee.

The flap in Washington highlights how policymakers have long ignored or tried to suppress information about the role of climate change in conflict situations. Mach said resolving experts' disagreements about climate change and conflict could nudge policymakers into mainstreaming the use of climate science in assessing security and diplomatic risk.

The study's authors also recommended that the role of climate change in conflict inform policies to rein in global warming. They wrote: "Given that conflict has pervasive detrimental human, economic and environmental consequences, climate-conflict linkages-even if small-would markedly influence the social costs of carbon and decisions to limit future climate change."

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Climate Change Will Increase Risk of Violent Conflict, Researchers Warn - Inside Climate News

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Worsening climate change will increase the risk of future violent conflict within countries, a group of top researchers representing an array of viewpoints said Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature. The study, "Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict," tries to address some longstanding disagreements among climate scientists, political scientists, historians and other experts [...]

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Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment | 2019

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Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

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What is the link between climate change and conflict?

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What is the link between climate change and conflict?

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United Nations

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What is the link between climate change and conflict?

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Grist | 2016

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Thomas Friedman | The Years Project | 2017

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'Climate Wars - Syria' with Thomas Friedman

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YaleClimateConnections | 2015

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Adelphi, Berlin | ECC Factbook | 2015

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Climate Change and the Syrian Civil War (ECC Factbook Conflict Analysis)

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U.S. Intelligence Officials Warn Climate Change Is a Worldwide Threat

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U.S. Intelligence Officials Warn Climate Change Is a Worldwide Threat

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Inside Climate News | Neela Banerjee | 2019

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Their annual assessment says climate hazards such as extreme weather, droughts, floods, wildfires and sea level rise threaten infrastructure, health and security.

The nation's intelligence community warned in its annual assessment of worldwide threats that climate change and other kinds of environmental degradation pose risks to global stability because they are "likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond."

Released Tuesday, the Worldwide Threat Assessment prepared by the Director of National Intelligence added to a swelling chorus of scientific and national security voices in pointing out the ways climate change fuels widespread insecurity and erodes America's ability to respond to it.

"Climate hazards such as extreme weather, higher temperatures, droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, sea level rise, soil degradation, and acidifying oceans are intensifying, threatening infrastructure, health, and water and food security," said the report, which represents the consensus view among top intelligence officials. "Irreversible damage to ecosystems and habitats will undermine the economic benefits they provide, worsened by air, soil, water, and marine pollution."

In just the past two weeks, the Pentagon sent a report to Congress describing extreme weather and climate risks to dozens of critical military installations. (House leaders on Wednesday asked for more details, including an assessment of the 10 bases in each service most vulnerable to climate change.) The Government Accountability Office also recommended the State Department resume providing guidance to U.S. diplomats about climate change and migration. Last week, a scientific paper concluded that drought driven by climate change and the subsequent fights over water resources increased the likelihood of armed conflict in the Middle East from 2011-2015, which in turn triggered waves refugees.

The United Nations Security Council also held a discussion on Friday devoted to understanding and responding to how climate change acts as a "threat multiplier" in countries where governance is already fragile and resources are sparse.

Robert Mardini, the permanent observer to the UN from the International Committee of the Red Cross, said his group's fieldwork confirms the "double impact" of climate change and war.

"Climate change exacerbates vulnerabilities and inequalities, especially in situations of armed conflict, where countries, communities and populations are the least prepared and the least able to protect themselves and adapt," Mardini t old the Security Council, according to his published remarks. "Conflicts harm the structures and systems that are necessary to facilitate adaptation to climate change."

In Contrast with the U.S. President

The formal threat assessment is also the latest federal survey of climate change to clash with President Donald Trump's adamant denial of the established consensus. In late November, the administration issued the Fourth National Climate Assessment, based on the work of 300 scientists and 13 federal agencies, which concluded that climate change threatened human life, ecosystems and the American economy. Trump dismissed the report, saying he did not believe its central findings.

Trump has pushed the message of climate denial through federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, mainly by working to halt rules and research to address climate change. But so far, the White House has not reined in the national security community when its leaders have acknowledged climate change or its agencies have explored its implications.

Further, members of Congress from both parties have provided the Pentagon, at least, with cover, instructing it in late 2017 to analyze the threats climate change poses to American military readiness.

Regions to Watch for Climate-Related Risks

The 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment echoes the findings of versions from previous years that highlight climate change as a threat to what's called "human security" in a list that includes terrorism, cyber crimes and weapons of mass destruction. Among the situations and places it cites as being of particular concern are:

Urban coastal areas of South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Western Hemisphere that could be battered by extreme weather and aggravated by rising sea levels. It says "damage to communication, energy, and transportation infrastructure could affect low-lying military bases, inflict economic costs, and cause human displacement and loss of life." (Last year, Hurricane Michael inflicted an estimated $5 billion in damage on Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.)

Countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan and Iraq, which are at increasing risk of social unrest and cross-border tension because "changes in the frequency and variability of heat waves, droughts, and floods-combined with poor governance practices-are increasing water and food insecurity."

The Arctic, where receding sea ice "may increase competition-particularly with Russia and China- over access to sea routes and natural resources."

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U.S. Intelligence Officials Warn Climate Change Is a Worldwide Threat - Inside Climate News

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The nation's intelligence community warned in its annual assessment of worldwide threats that climate change and other kinds of environmental degradation pose risks to global stability because they are "likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond."

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U.S. Military Report Warns Climate Change Threatens Key Bases

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U.S. Military Report Warns Climate Change Threatens Key Bases

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Inside Climate News | Nicholas Kusnetz | 2019

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The report, requested by Congress in 2017, drew sharp criticism for being too thin on details and failing to show which bases are most at risk across the military.

A new Pentagon report identifies significant risks from climate change at scores of military bases and says the Defense Department is taking protective measures against the looming threat.

But Democrats in Congress, who requested the report in 2017 along with some Republican colleagues, said the report lacks the detail they were looking for and shows that the Trump administration is failing to take climate change seriously as a national security threat.

The report, submitted to Congress on Thursday, lists vulnerabilities at 79 key military facilities that were reviewed and says nearly all are facing problems from increasingly severe weather, such as flooding and drought.

"The effects of a changing climate are a national security issue with potential impacts to Department of Defense missions, operational plans, and installations," the report says, adding that the department needs to adapt its operations to this new reality.

Congress requested the report in an amendment to a defense authorization bill, which passed with bipartisan support at the same time the Trump administration was stripping climate change as a concern from its national security outlook.

The report lays out a variety of risks the military facilities are facing and outlines some of the department's work in response. It also reiterates the ways climate change can threaten national security, from stressing infrastructure and training operations with extreme weather to contributing to instability in fragile regions of the world and increasing the need for humanitarian assistance missions.

Yet the report does not provide what Congress actually requested: a list of the 10 most vulnerable facilities in each branch of the armed services.

Hurricane Michael tore up hangars and buildings across Tyndall Air Force Base in October 2018 and caused an estimated $5 billion in damage. The new report doesn't mention the hurricane damage there. Credit: Senior Airman Keifer Bowes/U.S. Air Force

"There were not a lot of ambiguities in what we required, and what the report produced didn't come close at all," said Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat who proposed the amendment requesting the report.

The top 10 list was supposed to help the military and Congress identify where to focus limited funds to help prevent costly damage in the future, like the multi-billion dollar disasters that Hurricanes Florence and Michael brought to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune in North Carolina last year, he said, neither of which were mentioned in the report.

"The military is going to be coming back to Congress, and they're going to be asking us to fix these things," he said. "That's the importance of doing it now. It's going to be more costly to taxpayers and to our budget as a whole if we don't act with preventive measures as opposed to just responding all the time."

John Conger, former assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment under President Barack Obama and now director of the Center for Climate and Security, shared Langevin's concerns.

"We've been thinking about how they were going to analyze this, and it feels like they didn't make the jump from anecdote to analysis," he said.

Heather Babb, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said, "The report highlights the climate vulnerabilities of the top 79 mission assurance priority installations. By using this alternative approach, we are able to highlight where there are operational risks."

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the Pentagon "is treating climate change as a back burner issue." He noted that the report does not include any Marine Corps facilities, and said he would ask for a more comprehensive report.

Climate Impact: Sea Level Rise to Wildfires

The report assesses the impacts of "climate-related events"-flooding, drought, desertification, wildfires and thawing permafrost-at 79 facilities described as "mission assurance priority installations." The most common problem is flooding-both coastal and inland-which is affecting 53 of the facilities already, with seven more expected to become vulnerable within 20 years.

Joint Base Langley-Eustis, in the vulnerable Hampton Roads area of Virginia, has experienced 14 inches of sea level rise since 1930, causing more severe and frequent flooding, the report says.

Navy Base Coronado, in California, experiences flash floods during tropical storms, and officials there reported that rising seas and storm surge flooding are limiting access.

The report says drought conditions-listed as a risk for 43 of the installations now, with an additional five expected to face the problem within 20 years-can impair operations by worsening heat-related illnesses and increasing the risk of wildfires, which it calls "a constant concern on many military installations."

A wildfire broke out during training in Colorado in March 2018, destroying three homes. Another, in November 2017, forced the evacuation of personnel on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

In Fort Greely, Alaska, Army training ranges are built on top of permafrost that's at risk of thawing, which can destabilize the ground, the report notes.

How the Military Is Responding

The Pentagon says it is addressing these risks. The report notes that department-wide initiatives such as revised building codes, conservation programs and modeling of sea-level rise are helping make facilities more resilient. And it lists work at many of the installations to respond to the threats.

Joint Base Langley-Eustis created a tool that visualizes how floods will move through the facility in order to decide where to install door jambs to prevent flooding. All new structures on the base are also elevated at least 10.5 feet above sea level.

The report also describes a technology developed to use buried foam insulation to protect a runway in Greenland from being undermined by thawing permafrost.

Beyond discussing specific bases, the report says that Central Command, which includes the Middle East and Afghanistan, factors climate conditions into its campaign planning, and that the Northern and Indo-Pacific Commands regularly train for extreme weather and natural disasters. It also discusses the regional commands with responsibilities for South America, which is collecting localized data on vulnerabilities, and for Africa, where it says "planners must consider the impacts of drought and desertification as high potential instability areas and how these two hazards impact bases and missions."

What's Next?

Democrats in Congress said the work laid out in the report falls far short of what's needed, and they indicated they may ask the Pentagon to issue a new report.

"The Department of Defense presented no specifics on what is required to ensure operational viability and mission resiliency, and failed to estimate the future costs associated with ensuring these installations remain viable," said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

"That information was required by law. The Department of Defense must develop concrete, executable plans to address the national security threats presented by climate change. As drafted, this report fails to do that."

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U.S. Military Report Warns Climate Change Threatens Key Bases - Inside Climate News

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A new Pentagon report identifies significant risks from climate change at scores of military bases and says the Defense Department is taking protective measures against the looming threat. But Democrats in Congress, who requested the report in 2017 along with some Republican colleagues, said the report lacks the detail they were looking for and shows [...]

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Global warming increases risk of civil war in Africa, Stanford researchers say

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Global warming increases risk of civil war in Africa, Stanford researchers say

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Standford | 2009

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Climate change is likely to increase the number of civil wars raging in Africa, according to Stanford researchers. Historical records show that in warmer-than-average years, the number of conflicts rises. The researchers predict that by 2030, Africa could see a greater than 50 percent increase in civil wars, which could mean an additional 390,000 deaths just from fighting alone.

Climate change could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan Africa by over 50 percent within the next two decades, according to a new study led by a team of researchers at Stanford University, the University of California-Berkeley, New York University and Harvard University. The study is to be published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The study provides the first quantitative evidence linking climate change and the risk of civil conflict. It concludes by urging accelerated support by African governments and foreign aid donors for new and/or expanded policies to assist with African adaptation to climate change.

"Despite recent high-level statements suggesting that climate change could worsen the risk of civil conflict, until now we had little quantitative evidence linking the two," said Marshall Burke, the study's lead author and a researcher at Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment when the study was done. "Unfortunately, our study finds that climate change could increase the risk of African civil war by over 50 percent in 2030 relative to 1990, with huge potential costs to human livelihoods."

In the study, the researchers first combined historical data on civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa with rainfall and temperature records across the continent. They found that between 1980 and 2002, civil wars were significantly more likely in warmer-than-average years, with a 1-degree Celsius increase in temperature in a given year raising the incidence of conflict across the continent by nearly 50 percent.

Building on this historical relationship between temperature and conflict, the researchers then used projections of future temperature and precipitation change to quantify future changes in the likelihood of African civil war. Based on climate projections from 20 global climate models, the researchers found that the incidence of African civil war could increase roughly 55 percent by 2030, resulting in an additional 390,000 battle deaths if future wars are as deadly as recent wars.

All climate models project rising temperatures in coming decades, said David Lobell, study co-author and an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford.

"On average, the models suggest that temperatures over the African continent will increase by a little over 1 degree Celsius by 2030," he added. "Given the strong historical relationship between temperature rise and conflict, this expected future rise in temperature is enough to cause big increases in the likelihood of conflict."

To confirm that this projection was not the result of large effects in just a few countries or due to overreliance on a particular climate model, the researchers recalculated future conflict projections using alternate data. "No matter what we tried - different historical climate data, different climate model projections, different subsets of the conflict data - we still found the same basic result," said Lobell, who is also a fellow at the Program on Food Security and the Environment.

"We were definitely surprised that the linkages between temperature and recent conflict were so strong," said Edward Miguel, professor of economics at UC-Berkeley and faculty director of UC-Berkeley's Center for Evaluation for Global Action. "But the result makes sense. The large majority of the poor in most African countries depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and their crops are quite sensitive to small changes in temperature. So when temperatures rise, the livelihoods of many in Africa suffer greatly, and the disadvantaged become more likely to take up arms."

Marshall Burke

Farmers and pastoralists in a maize growing regions of Eastern Kenya. A new study finds that climate change could severely harm crop productivity and increase the likelihood that disadvantaged rural populations will take up arms.

Understanding the causes and consequences of civil strife in much of the African continent has been a major focus of the social sciences for decades, said Miguel, given the monumental suffering that has resulted.

It's easy to think of climate change as a long way off, the researchers said, but their study shows how sensitive many human systems are to small increases in temperature, and how fast the negative impacts of climate change could be felt.

"Our findings provide strong impetus to ramp up investments in African adaptation to climate change, for instance by developing crop varieties less sensitive to extreme heat and promoting insurance plans to help protect farmers from adverse effects of the hotter climate," Burke said.

Applying findings from this study could prove useful to policy makers at the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations in December in determining both the speed and magnitude of response to climate change, the authors said.

"If the sub-Saharan climate continues to warm and little is done to help its countries better adapt to high temperatures, the human costs are likely to be staggering," said Burke, who is now a graduate student at UC-Berkeley's Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

David Lobell is a center fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment.

Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment is a joint program of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Woods Institute for the Environment.

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Global warming increases risk of civil war in Africa, Stanford researchers say

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Climate change is likely to increase the number of civil wars raging in Africa, according to Stanford researchers. Historical records show that in warmer-than-average years, the number of conflicts rises. The researchers predict that by 2030, Africa could see a greater than 50 percent increase in civil wars, which could mean an additional 390,000 deaths just from fighting alone.

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Why stopping wars is essential for stopping climate change

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Why stopping wars is essential for stopping climate change

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Counterfire | Elaine Graham-Leigh | 2019

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War isn't just a waste of resources that could be used to tackle climate change, but is itself a significant cause of environmental harm, argues Elaine Graham-Leigh

War is not often mentioned in mainstream discussions about the causes of climate change. The 1992 Kyoto Protocol indeed explicitly excluded greenhouse gas emissions from military action from its emissions targets. This automatic exclusion was removed in the 2015 Paris Agreement, but it is still not mandatory for signatory countries to track and reduce their military carbon emissions.

The enormous cost of the military machine in both the US and the UK gives the lie to claims that dealing with climate change would be unaffordable for Western governments. When proposers of a Green New Deal in US are told that ' there's no money to pay for it', it's natural to look to the $716bn of US military spending as a potential source of those elusive funds. Similarly, in the UK, we should not forget that a government which apparently can't find money for the NHS, public services or green infrastructure can find £205bn for renewing Trident.

The connections between war and climate change however go further than simple competition for government funding. War isn't just a waste of resources that could be used to tackle climate change, but is itself a significant cause of environmental harm. The armed forces have considerable carbon footprints. This is most true of the US military, but the UK armed forces will have similar practices, albeit on a smaller scale.

The US military admits to getting through 395,000 barrels of oil every day, including jet fuel consumption which makes it the single largest consumer in the world. This is an astonishing figure which is nevertheless likely to be a considerable underestimate. Once all the oil use from military contractors, weapons manufacturing and all those secret bases and operations that get missed out of the official figures are factored in, the real daily usage is likely to be closer to a million barrels. As even supporters of the military admit, 'vast swathes of our military are big carbon emitters - tanks, jeeps, Humvees, jet planes', as Steven Groves from the Heritage Foundation put it in 2015. To put the figures into perspective, US military personnel on active service make up around 0.0002% of the world's population, but are part of a military system which generates around 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Much of these emissions are from the military infrastructure that the US maintains around the world. The environmental cost of war itself is considerably higher. It has been estimated that the Iraq war between 2003 and 2007 accounted for 141 million metric tonnes of CO ², more than 60% of all the countries in the world.

The environmental damage caused by war is not limited, of course, to climate change. The effects of nuclear bombing and nuclear testing, the use of Agent Orange, depleted uranium and other toxic chemicals, as well as land mines and unexploded ordinance lingering in conflict zones long after the war has moved on, have earned the US military a deserved reputation as 'the greatest single assault on the environment.' It has been estimated that 20% of all environmental degradation around the world is due to military and related activities, much of which of course has involved the US and the UK.

The US military is particularly secretive about its energy requirements. Journalists have commented that it is easier to get casualty figures out of the Department of Defense than it is to get statistics on military oil use. US military behaviour tells us however that there is an absolute commitment to continue to get through oil at the current, astonishing rate, even when there might be good, military reasons for reducing it. When the US Defense Science Board reported in 2001 that the military would need either to develop more oil efficient weapons or better support systems to be able to keep themselves supplied, 'the generals seem to have chosen a third option: capturing access to more oil' (Ian Angus, Facing the Anthropocene, (Monthly Review Press 2016), p.161). This indicates the fundamental truth about the military and climate change: that the modern way of war emerged from and is only possible with profligate use of fossil fuel.

The rapid rise in greenhouse gas emissions that created the current climate crisis began in around 1950; in other words, in the period immediately following the Second World War. This is not a coincidence. Oil had been important in the First World War, but controlling access to oil supplies was crucial in the Second. The Allies would not have won had they not been able to cut off German access to oil and to maintain it for themselves. The lesson for the US in particular after the war was that continuing access to and monopolisation of the world's oil was essential if it was to be the world's superpower. This made oil a central military priority, and also cemented the dominant position of the petroleum/automotive sector in the US. These were preconditions for a system dependent on greenhouse gas emitting technologies for military and domestic production; the source of the climate change we are facing now.

The last seventy years have been seventy years of imperialist wars and seventy years of climate change. These are not unrelated unfortunate facts, but a demonstration of how greenhouse gas emissions and environmental destruction are inescapably part of modern warfare.

We can have wars for oil, or we can have a moderate climate and an inhabitable planet. It is increasingly clear that we cannot have both.

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Why stopping wars is essential for stopping climate change

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War is not often mentioned in mainstream discussions about the causes of climate change. The 1992 Kyoto Protocol indeed explicitly excluded greenhouse gas emissions from military action from its emissions targets. This automatic exclusion was removed in the 2015 Paris Agreement, but it is still not mandatory for signatory countries to track and reduce their military carbon emissions.

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A major contributor to the Syrian conflict? Climate change

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A major contributor to the Syrian conflict? Climate change

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PBS | 2016 | Vikram Mansharamani

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This week marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict in Syria. The costs of the war are staggering: It has claimed almost half a million lives, wounded close to 2 million people, generated 4.8 million refugees and displaced almost 7 million people within Syria.

Imagine a conflict that killed off everyone in Atlanta, wounded every single person in San Francisco and Dallas and led everyone in Chicago and Houston to leave the country in search of safety.

To put these numbers in perspective, imagine a conflict that killed off everyone in Atlanta, wounded every single person in San Francisco and Dallas, led everyone in Chicago and Houston to leave the country in search of safety and drove everyone living in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and Seattle from their homes to other cities and states.

Another way to think of the scale of the war is in terms of population percentages. Imagine if the U.S. had 9.6 million people killed, 32 million wounded, 76.8 million refugees fleeing America and 96 million people displaced from their homes - that would be a catastrophe proportional to what the Syrian people have endured.

No matter how you think about it, the impact of the Syrian Civil War has been enormous. And unsurprisingly, Syria's five-year war has unleashed geopolitical chaos.
READ MORE: Cuba's semi-untouched markets offer rare opportunity for U.S. businesses

Yet tentative signs of progress are emerging as negotiators meet this week amid a ceasefire to discuss how to end the violence for good. And in a potentially positive development, Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to withdraw from Syria while the talks were ongoing.

As we hope for peace half a decade after the conflict's start, it is also worth peering backward to understand how we got to this point in the first place. It may be surprising for some to learn that a major contributor to the conflict was climate change.

The suffering and social chaos caused by the drought were important drivers of the initial unrest.

Starting in 2006, Syria suffered its worst drought in 900 years; it ruined farms, forced as many as 1.5 million rural denizens to crowd into cities alongside Iraqi refugees and decimated the country's livestock. Water became scarce and food expensive. The suffering and social chaos caused by the drought were important drivers of the initial unrest.

Climate scientists have argued that global warming very likely exacerbated the historic drought, thanks to potentially permanent changes to wind and rainfall patterns. Thus, even if negotiators do reach a resolution, the underlying strains in the region may be here to stay. In fact, almost half of the countries most at risk of water shortages in the coming decades are in the Middle East or North Africa.

The sad reality is that supply disruptions are increasingly likely at the same time as the world is facing rising demand for water. The toxic combination of population increases and water-intensive lifestyles, driven by affluence, may lead to devastating price spikes. Expect water wars in the decades ahead.
READ MORE: Water wars are coming
But climate change will impact more than access to water. The Pentagon recognizes global warming as a significant strategic threat, saying that it could it could cause "instability in other countries by impairing access to food and water, damaging infrastructure, spreading disease, uprooting and displacing large numbers of people, compelling mass migration, interrupting commercial activity, or restricting electricity availability." Further, the U.S. military fears such disruptions could "create an avenue for extremist ideologies and conditions that foster terrorism."

The conflict in Syria is a case in point. Consider three developments from the war: the rise of ISIS; the migrant crisis and the resulting political upheaval across Europe; and President Obama's decision not to enforce the "red line" on chemical weapons - a decision that may come to define his foreign policy.

The Pentagon recognizes global warming as a significant strategic threat, and the U.S. military fears such disruptions could "create an avenue for extremist ideologies and conditions that foster terrorism."

The link between climate change and the conflict in Syria is a reminder that decision-makers need to scan widely when assessing risks and opportunities. Methods like scenario planning can force us to thoroughly consider possibilities that at first seem improbable.

Think of food prices and how they may affect our world. If food prices were to fall 50 percent, who would benefit? Most of the world. Who would suffer? Food producers. Now what if food prices were to rise by 50 percent? Given families in Pakistan and Indonesia spend more than 40 percent of their budgets on food, might a price spike generate unrest in these countries?

Teasing out the global implications of truly disparate factors is critical for navigating uncertainty. However, in a world of constant information overload, this is easier said than done. Because many of us drown in data and are overrun by stampedes of information, we value focus and the ability to filter away noise. The problem with focus is it assumes we know what matters and that we know what doesn't, enabling us to ignore what we think of as "noise." Too often, we filter away signal with noise and miss possible insights. We throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

For that reason, we must distract ourselves out of our professional tunnel vision to successfully navigate our radically complex, intertwined world. Given the enormous potential dangers lurking ahead, forcing ourselves to connect seemingly unrelated dots will help to ensure a brighter, safer future for all.

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A major contributor to the Syrian conflict? Climate change

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Starting in 2006, Syria suffered its worst drought in 900 years; it ruined farms, forced as many as 1.5 million rural denizens to crowd into cities alongside Iraqi refugees and decimated the country's livestock. Water became scarce and food expensive. The suffering and social chaos caused by the drought were important drivers of the initial unrest.

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Climate and Migration Coalition | 2015

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Syria and climate change - Podcast / lecture by Climate & Migration

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During 2015 the media started connecting climate change with the conflict in Syria and subsequent refugee movements across Europe. Many reports were in direct response to new research making this connection. Other reports mentioned this research while examining other major events such as the drownings in the Mediterranean, the refugee camp in Calais and the terrorist attacks in November 2015. But did those media reports accurately represent the research they referenced? (Cover image: EC/ECHO/Dina Baslan  CC BY-SA 2.0 From Flickr https://flic.kr/p/cMmfEb)

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The Years Project | VISHVA BHATT

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As climate change has caused global temperatures to rise, there also seems to be an ever-growing number of conflicts around the world. So, what is the evidence linking climate change to war?

Alarmingly, several studies suggest that climate change makes conflicts such as civil war or genocide more likely. It is important to note that climate change has not been proven to increase the likelihood of discord; however, climate change compounded with challenging economic, political, or social conditions can heighten the risk of conflict . Climate change is a threat multiplier, which means it amplifies problems already facing the world. Stressors such as poverty, political instability, and crime are magnified by increased droughts, floods, or heat waves.

Experts point to Sudan's civil war as the first example of a modern climate change-induced conflict. The United Nations linked desertification and dwindling rainfall caused by rising temperatures to food and water insecurity; the insecurity then resulted in a rebellion that the Sudanese government reacted to with a campaign of violence. Famine plagued Sudan, as rains dwindled and fertile land became arid. The lack of food paired with deep-rooted social and political tensions exacerbated the risk of conflict until the country broke into civil war . Climate change heightened the competition for invaluable resources, further intensifying the preexistent tensions between ethnic groups. Average temperatures are expected to rise if the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is not significantly reduced within the next few years. The high temperatures will lead to more drought, which has the potential to be an impetus for more conflict.

Climate change is threatening not only people's livelihoods but also their lives. Its adverse effects on global temperatures and rainfall result in increased competition for necessary resources, such as food and water. As competition for life-sustaining resources continues to rise, so does the potential for violent, deadly conflict. In Syria, climate change's adverse environmental effects on top of existing instability sparked civil war, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths. The shrinking of Lake Chad forced communities to compete for precious resources, and conflict arose between previously friendly neighbors. The continuous rise of global temperatures has induced food and water insecurity in Sudan, and violence has broken out as people fight for control of life-sustaining resources. While climate change itself does not cause war, with a mix of economic, social, or political tensions the ground is ripe for conflict to grow.

Vishva Bhatt is a second-year student at The George Washington University. She is majoring in International Affairs, with concentrations in Environmental Studies and Security Policy. She is also minoring in Sustainability and Arabic Studies.

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Is Climate Change Causing More Wars? - The Years Project

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As climate change has caused global temperatures to rise, there also seems to be an ever-growing number of conflicts around the world. So, what is the evidence linking climate change to war? Alarmingly, several studies suggest that climate change makes conflicts such as civil war or genocide more likely.