Global Warming Could Lead to Increased Civil War in Africa
Saturday, November 28, 2009

Fighting in Kenya (AP Photo)

Described as the first quantitative evidence linking climate change and the risk of civil war, university researchers have concluded rising temperatures on the continent of Africa are likely to result in more warfare in the coming decades. A group from Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, New York University and Harvard University studied historical patterns of conflict, drought and temperature fluctuations and noted that there is a correlation between warmer weather and civil wars.

Their explanation is that when temperatures go up, crops tend to die off, producing unrest in agriculturally dependent economies. “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,” said Edward Miguel, professor of economics at UC-Berkeley and faculty director of UC-Berkeley’s Center for Evaluation for Global Action. “So when temperatures rise, the livelihoods of many in Africa suffer greatly, and the disadvantaged become more likely to take up arms.”

The authors of the study predict that if overall temperatures rise one degree Celsius by 2030, the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan Africa could increase by more than 50%, resulting in nearly 400,000 battle deaths.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

Global Warming Increases Risk of Civil War in Africa, Stanford Researchers Say (Stanford University News)

Warming Increases the Risk of Civil War in Africa (by Marshall B. Burke, Edward Miguel, Shanker Satyanath, John A. Dykema, and David B. Lobell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) (PDF)