With COP29 underway in Azerbaijan this week, and in light of increasing recognition of the link between climate change and conflict, more voices are now calling for peace-positive climate action.
In this blogpost, Alice Raymond shares the latest data on references to the environment in peace agreements from the PA-X Peace Agreements Database, as well as PeaceRep’s recent publications on the climate, conflict and peace.
The Climate-Conflict Nexus: What Research and Peace Agreements Reveal
Last year’s COP acknowledged, for the first time, the critical link between climate change and conflict. This year, Azerbaijan, as host, proposed a “truce COP”—a call for a global ceasefire during the conference. Despite criticisms of hypocrisy and “peacewashing”, Nisreen Elsaim and Tim Epple suggest that Azerbaijan has a unique opportunity to address the climate-conflict nexus.
Peace agreements have the potential to address various environmental issues, including natural disasters, sustainability, food security, environmental degradation and restoration, and climate change. But since 1990, only about 10% of global peace agreements (220 of 2055) have included environmental provisions.
Recently, a few peace processes have addressed climate impacts more directly, with commitments to mitigate climate risks, enact climate-aligned legislation, support hydropower, mainstream climate policies, and address desertification-related conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. In 2023, agreements from the Philippines, Kosovo-Serbia, and Colombia made reference to the environment, with Colombia’s Acuerdo de Mexico including provisions for the “protection of our Mother Earth” and recognition of the environment as a victim (PA-X Version 8, 2024).
With more voices now calling for bold leadership and peace-positive climate action, browse PeaceRep’s recent publications on peace, conflict and the environment for further insights:
Issues surrounding natural resource ownership, control and wealth distribution remain significant—and often contentious—topics in peace negotiations and constitutional deliberations. Women are frequently sidelined from influential roles in negotiations on natural resource management:
“Inclusive frameworks that integrate conflict resolution, environmental protection, and inclusion of women must be developed and utilized in peace processes and subsequent constitution-making processes. Due to social, legal and economic barriers, women and girls are especially vulnerable to the impacts of environmental degradation, climate change and conflict. Addressing their systematic exclusion from natural resource governance and related decision making at all levels is crucial for tackling the root causes of these issues, and for promoting equity, environmental stewardship and economic sustainability.”
The climate crisis has intensified the migration of Dinka Bor herders from Jonglei State to the Equatoria region. While the national government has made some targeted efforts to mitigate climate-induced displacement and its impact on herders and farmers, comprehensive climate action policies are lacking. The absence of such policies has compelled citizens to devise their own coping mechanisms, often leading to conflicts among them.
• Decarbonization and Conflict Resolution: Implications for the Clean Energy Transition
This policy brief from the World Peace Foundation outlines a new, nuanced relationship among conflict, peacemaking, and natural resources in violent, transactional political systems, describing how the availability of discretionary oil rents impacts patterns of peacemaking. In a related blog on decarbonization and conflict resolution, the WPF highlights how proposed policies need careful consideration where they may lead to destabilization for carbon-based political marketplaces.
• The New Era of Turbulence: Peacemaking Trends in Post-Carbon Times
Based on an empirical comparison of peace processes in carbon-dependent economies over time, this article investigates the impact of decarbonization and the related decline of political finance in respective political marketplaces on peacemaking. The author argues that, while the period of high oil prices in the mid-2000s was characterised several significant peace deals that attempted comprehensive settlements, the decline of oil prices in the years from 2013 to 2021 has led to a new era of turbulence.
• Managing Climate Change under the De Facto Authorities
The Afghanistan Research Network discusses the state of climate change-related work in Afghanistan prior to the collapse of the Republic, and offers a series of practical recommendations for resuming work on this issue in the current context.