Environmental Migration and Conflict: Evidence from Disaster Displacement

• In Event: Poster Session: Conflict Processes I

Abstract

Climate change is expected to affect the livelihoods of citizens around the globe through both gradual and sudden changes, often with deleterious consequences. Migration is one way in which people cope with these and other adverse impacts, and the alarming magnitude of expected climate change-induced displacement has generated significant interest concerning its potential security consequences. While the growing body of empirical research analyzing the relationship between climate change and armed conflict frequently cites migration as an intermediary in the causal path (Nordås & Gleditsch 2007; Theisen, Holtermann, & Buhaug 2011; Fjelde & von Uexkull 2012; Theisen, Gleditsch, & Buhaug 2013, Schluessner et al. 2016, among others), research has just begun to test this link systematically (Koubi et al. 2018). Using an original dataset of displacement caused by sudden-onset natural disasters around the world from 1989-2018, this paper evaluates the claim that climate change-induced migration causes conflict. Climate change is expected to affect the frequency, intensity, and geographical distribution of certain types of natural disasters, and distress migration triggered by these events provides a partial but crucial test for the link between climate change, migration, and conflict more broadly. The results show little support for the thesis that climate change-induced migration causes internal violent conflict. When natural disasters generate displacement, countries are no more likely to experience civil war or nonstate armed conflict.

Author

• Angela Chesler, University of Notre Dame