Enviroment and Climate Change

A study in the peer review journal Science out this week claims to show evidence of the links between a warming climate and increased violence.

This article first appeared on the Thomson Reuters Foundation website.

Resilience, as a concept, has re-emerged after a few decades of hibernation as the development term du jour.  While not without its challenges, the approach certainly has merits.

International Alert convenes an expert roundtable, Building resilience – building peace, in Kathmandu on Monday 8 July. It’s the culmination of two and half years of research on the impact of climate change on local communities in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. I can’t be there, so we recorded four minutes to camera as my contribution to the day's events.

International Alert’s latest research, produced in collaboration with the South Asia Network for Security and Climate Change (SANSaC), looks at the relationship between the environment and security in South Asia.

This study is one of a series of regional studies which aim to present evidence of the interactions between environmental, social, political and economic risks at the local level in South Asia. Drawing on field research and consultations with policymakers, practitioners and academics, this case study looks at the dimensions of local resilience and the reasons for vulnerability and non-adaptation in two districts, Thatta and Badin, in Sindh province.

Full report

This study is one of a series of regional studies which aim to present evidence of the interactions between environmental, social, political and economic risks at the local level in South Asia. Drawing on field research and consultations with policymakers, practitioners and academics, this case study seeks to identify obstacles to and opportunities for interventions to build resilience to interlinked environmental and security risks in fragile, post-conflict contexts in Nepal.

Full report

This study is one of a series of regional studies which aim to present evidence of the interactions between environmental, social, political and economic risks at the local level in South Asia. Drawing on field research and consultations with policymakers, practitioners and academics, this case study looks at the dimensions of local resilience in two communities living around Chilika Lake in Odisha, the biggest brackish water lake in India.

Full report

This study is one of a series of regional studies which aim to present evidence of the interactions between environmental, social, political and economic risks at the local level in South Asia. Drawing on field research and consultations with policymakers, practitioners and academics, this case study seeks to identify obstacles to and opportunities for interventions to build resilience to interlinked environmental and security risks among vulnerable communities in Bangladesh.

Full report

This is the executive summary for a series of regional studies which aim to present evidence of the interactions between environmental, social, political and economic risks at the local level in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. It is based on the findings from desk and field research which looks at the root causes of vulnerability and non-adaptation in fragile contexts, and at the opportunities for strengthening resilience to combined risks of climate change and conflict.

Full report

This report examines how forestry projects under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) initiative affect pre-existing structures of power, economy, fairness, safety and wellbeing in Brazil, Indonesia and Uganda, and how they may exacerbate pre-existing conflicts over land and resources. The report also looks at how REDD+ funds could provide the opportunity to diversify livelihoods, encourage sustainable development and enhance the adaptive capacity of local populations in the face of a changing climate.

Full report

On 15 May, International Alert partnered with the International Peace Institute (IPI) to present findings on environmental change and security at a roundtable event at IPI in New York.

On 7 February, Janani Vivekananda, International Alert’s Climate Change and Conflict Programme Manager, spoke at the Strengthening Responses to Climate Variability in South Asia conference at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington DC. Janani presented four case studies - on Nepal, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh - to illustrate levels of risk and resilience to environmental change at village level.

Last month saw delegates from around the world assemble in Doha for the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in an effort to inch towards a global deal on climate change. Yet discussions on how much financing should be provided and by whom didn’t reach satisfying conclusions, despite a week’s worth of negotiations.

Despite its 40,000 plus participants and hangers-on, the Rio+20 conference was hardly headline-grabbing. It should have been because it was about saving the natural environment – and the fact that it wasn’t is a reflection not just on media news values, but also on what happened before and during.