Years ago, Mohamed’s family had enough to eat, despite being poor. His daughter owned a vegetable stall at a bustling market in northeastern Nigeria. The family had options: during the dry season, when Lake Chad was shallow, Mohamed could farm; and during the wet season, he could fish or graze his cattle. But then things began to change.
The new study Shoring up Stability demonstrates, for the first time, how climate change interacts with conflict and exacerbates the humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad region. To launch the report and discuss its findings with local policy-makers, experts and practitioners, the German Embassy in Niger, adelphi and CNESS co-organised a launch event on 24 October in Niamey. Insights from Niger point to the importance of investing in governance rather than technical fixes.
The public meeting is organised by the Netherlands Atlantic Youth and study association BASIS. Speakers are Clingendael's Senior Associate Fellow Tom Middendorp and ICCT's Senior Research Fellow Liesbeth van der Heide.
Meaningful engagement with the social and conflict implications of climate change in Solomon Islands must be firmly grounded within local worldviews—within Solomon Islanders’ physical, economic, political, and social and spiritual worlds. As we note in a recent policy brief for the Toda Peace Institute, when addressing conflict challenges exacerbated or caused by climate change, approaches should be drawn upon community understandings of what constitutes peace and justice.
Rather than acting as direct drivers of conflict, climate change and variability are seen as intermediary sources of risk, or ‘threat multipliers’. This is because they interact with existing socioeconomic and environmental conditions to increase livelihood insecurity and the probability of conflict in certain situations. In this light, this report explores the complex and tangled links between climate variability and change and the proliferation of armed networks operating in northern Niger.
The Lake Chad region is caught in a conflict trap. It is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies with an estimated 10.7 million people in need of assistance. adelphi’s study Shoring up Stability demonstrates, for the first time, how climate change is interacting with the conflict and compounds the crisis in the Lake Chad region. The launch event will present the findings from this climate and fragility assessment on Lake Chad.
The Lake Chad region is caught in a conflict trap. It is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies with an estimated 10.7 million people in need of assistance. adelphi’s study Shoring up Stability demonstrates, for the first time, how climate change is interacting with the conflict and compounds the crisis in the Lake Chad region. The launch event will present the findings from this climate and fragility assessment on Lake Chad.
At the conclusion of the 50th Pacific Islands Forum, Pacific leaders issued a Forum Communiqué and the ‘Kainaki II Declaration for Urgent Climate Change Action Now’ – the strongest collective statement the Forum has issued on climate change. Pacific leaders highlight the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit, the SAMOA Pathway Review, and 25th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25) to the UNFCCC as “global turning points to ensure meaningful, measurable and effective climate change action”.
Africa is vulnerable to natural variations in climate and human-induced climate change. Adapting to these impacts is key to achieving Africa’s development targets, and requires a coordinated and synergistic approach from a diverse range of actors across sectors, as well as better understanding of the drivers of risk and vulnerability. The African Climate Risks Conference (ACRC) is an open platform for sharing the latest African climate research among researchers, policy makers, practitioners and development partners.
“Climate Security risks will materialise in very different ways and forms, whether we talk about Lake Chad or about the Arctic, Bangladesh and the Small Island Developing States,” said the EU’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Joao Vale de Almeida, in his opening remarks. “But for the EU, there is no doubt, as underlined in 2016 in our Global Strategy, and reaffirmed by the 28 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, that climate change is a major threat to the security of the EU and to global peace and security more generally,” he said.
As the debate over climate-related security risks grows, many Pacific Island States are calling for more action by the international community to better address the links between climate change and global security. In an interview with adelphi, the former President of Nauru, Baron Waqa, highlights some of these calls as well as the challenges in getting the climate-security issue on the UN’s agenda.
Satellite analysis shows ‘vanishing’ lake has grown since 1990s, but climate instability is driving communities into the arms of Boko Haram and Islamic State. Climate change is aggravating conflict around Lake Chad, but not in the way experts once thought, according to new research.