The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6^th Assessment Report (AR6) from Working Group II (WG2): Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability presents the stark implications of climate change. At today’s warming level of 1.1°C, a wide range of impacts to people and nature are attributed to human-caused climate change, including hindering progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), damaging infrastructure and economic activities, harming human health and causing excess deaths, and increasing humanitarian needs. Some impacts, like those on sensitive ecosystems, are already irreversible. The more vulnerable are hit harder, due to pre-existing structural conditions that increase their exposure and sensitivity to hazards.

The last decade was the warmest on record, with 2020 tied with 2016 for the all-time high average annual global temperature. This 10-year period also saw armed conflicts at severity levels not seen since the Cold War era. Could there be a causal link between these trends?

To the frustration of policymakers and laymen alike, empirical research has been unable to provide a simple and coherent answer to this question. Instead, studies of climate-conflict connections have for a long time continued to produce diverging findings and – occasionally – inspired heated debates. So, where do we stand?

In a review article introducing a new special issue of the Journal of Peace Research (JPR) on the security implications of climate change, we assess the nature and extent of scientific progress in climate-conflict research over the past decade. As yardsticks for measuring progress, we identify seven key research priorities frequently advocated in earlier reviews of the quantitative literature. 

Climate-related disasters are a major source of human and material losses. Poverty and low level of economic development are important determinants of environmental vulnerability. Achieving stable and sustainable development thus represents an important strategy to reduce adverse impacts of climate change. However, present efforts to evaluate possible consequences of climate change in the future suffer from too optimistic assumptions about economic growth in poor countries, as we document in a new article just published in the journal Global Environmental Politics.