On climate variability and civil war in Asia
Open accessAbstract
Effects of climate change are frequently claimed to be responsible for widespread civil violence. Yet, scientists remain divided on this issue, and recent studies suggest that conflict risk increases with higher rainfall, loss of rainfall, higher temperatures or none of the above. Lack of scientific consensus is driven by differences in data, methods, and samples, but may also reflect a fragile and inconsistent correlation for the habitual spatiotemporal domain, Sub-Saharan Africa post-1980. This study presents a comprehensive, multi-scale empirical evaluation of climate-conflict connections across Asia, the continent with the highest conflict rate per country. We find little evidence that interannual climate variability and anomalies are linked to historical conflict risk in the simple and general manner proposed by some earlier research. Although a significant parameter coefficient can be obtained under certain specifications, the direction and magnitude of the climate effects are inconsistent and sensitive to research design. Instead, Asian civil wars share central features with violent events elsewhere, proving the main correlates of contemporary armed conflict to be economic and socio-political rather than climatological.
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Three related articles written by David Zhang and his team concluded that cooling trends led to more frequent wars and dynastic decline.
“Three related articles written by David Zhang and his team concluded that cooling trends led to more frequent wars and dynastic decline.”
From Climate change and Chinese history: a review of trends, topics, and methods (2015) · cites this paper as [76]
Section 2, “Linking climate anomalies to armed conflict” (page unavailable), reports that studies associate long-term cooling with wars and civilizational collapse. But it cites only two Zhang articles; the third is by Tol and Wagner. It also says “civilizational collapse,” not specifically dynastic decline. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredMost studies of outbreak of armed conflict typically find only weak climate effects.
“In contrast, most studies of outbreak of armed conflict typically find only weak climate effects (e.g.,94, 101, 172, 173).”
From Vicious Circles: Violence, Vulnerability, and Climate Change (2021) · cites this paper as [173]
Zhang's findings connected climate and crop failure to population decay and war.
“The findings connected climate and crop failure to population decay and war.75,76”
From Climate change and Chinese history: a review of trends, topics, and methods (2015) · cites this paper as [76]
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References 61 · Cited by 104
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Adger WN et al. (forthcoming) Chapter 12. Human Security. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- Authors
- Wischnath, G., & Buhaug, H.
- Affiliations
- Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies (DE)
- Peace Research Institute Oslo (NO)
- Corresponding author
- Buhaug, Halvard
- ORCID
- Buhaug, Halvard
- Venue
- Climatic Change
- Published
- 2014-01-22
- Volume
- 122
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 709-721
- ISSN
- 0165-0009 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-1480
- OpenAlex
- W2071745792
- Cited by
- 104
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 32.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Climatic Change (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Norges Forskningsråd
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Transboundary Water Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental and Biological Research in Conflict Zones
- Keywords
- climate variability, civil war, armed conflict, climate-conflict nexus, rainfall anomalies, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa
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