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Climate-Conflict Thresholds and Water as a Casualty of Conflict
June 22, 2012 By Graham NorwoodWhile numerous studies have examined the perils faced by businesses operating in conflict-affected or high-risk locations, Water as a Casualty of Conflict: Threats to Business and Society in High-Risk Areas, written by Kristina Donnelly, Mai-Lan Ha, Heather Cooley, and Jason Morrison, is the first such report to focus specifically on water. The report – a collaborative effort between the UN Global Compact and the Pacific Institute – aims to provide a framework for understanding the conflict-water-business nexus by first tracing the ways in which conflict and high-risk areas can adversely impact local and regional water systems and then illustrating the challenges such impacts can pose to businesses in conflict-affected or high-risk areas. Water as a Casualty of Conflict was published online this week and was introduced at a Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum panel session.
In an article titled “Climate Change and Violent Conflict,” appearing in the May 18th edition of Science, authors Jürgen Scheffran, Michael Brzoska, Jasmin Kominek, Michael Link, and Janpeter Schilling attempt to sort out some of the controversy surrounding the intersection of climate change and violent conflict. They urge greater interdisciplinary research to identify and provide solutions for possible “tipping points” where the impacts of climate change may prove too great for human adaptive capacity. Such research has been scarce due to difficulties in collecting sufficient data. Moreover, the authors note that many of the extant studies on climate change and conflict are flawed because of how they define violent conflict. The commonly-used Uppsala Conflict Data Program and Peace Research Institute Oslo (UCDP-PRIO) Armed Conflict dataset, for instance, excludes by definition many riots, protests, incidences of livestock theft, and other violent or potentially violent behaviors. This is problematic because, as the authors point out, “in recent decades, climate variability may have been more associated with low-level violence and internal civil war – which fall below the UCDP-PRIO definition cutoff – than with armed conflict or war between countries.”
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