One of the most doom-laden assertions from the Climate Change tendency is that said Climate Change causes mass conflict.

See here for a classic noisy example: genocide in Darfur was caused ‘at least in part’ by Climate Change.

But even the Guardian strikes a note of caution.

As do the ICG:

Yet the relationship between climate change and conflict is complex and not yet sufficiently understood. This is in part because climate projections are somewhat limited in geographic and temporal specificity, and different societies have different capacities to adapt to changes and related effects. But it is also because the processes that produce violent conflict in any particular situation are often complicated.

Although environmental change likely never has been and never will be the sole or proximate cause of deadly conflict, it can contribute to conditions that make it more likely or severe.

And, of course, less likely and less severe (eg if previously dry areas start to get wetter). But that positive aspect does not suit the narrative.

Since no significant conflict round the world in the past 2000 years can sensibly be ascribed to Climate Change (despite large climate changes to and fro throughout that period) it seems best to tip-toe quietly away from this one.

Chris McDowell (formerly FCO, now City University in London) is a serious international expert on the problems of people being displaced en masse because of conflict and huge development projects. He nails it here:

It is further assumed and contended by many governments around the world that ensuing mass migration is both inevitable and will result in conflict both within and between states. But if we’re being scientific, what is the “evidence base” for these assumptions? Does social science research tell us anything different about the causes and consequences of displacement and migration?

  • numerous studies inform us that people migrate for a wide range of context-specific reasons, an event, even a disastrous one, does not inevitably result in mass out-migration, some may leave, some will stay, remittances will flow
  • environmental degradation (see the admittedly overhyped Machakos Miracle) may actually stimulate people to find new solutions, to invest more not less in the land, and to innovate: just as long as governments help to create the conditions to make this happen
  • and there is evidence from Aceh following the 2004/5 tsunami that a natural disaster and population displacement on a massive scale, rather than triggering violence, can actually create from nowhere the conditions for (touch wood) lasting peace after years of what was previously thought unresolvable conflict

The displacement-violence causality, which is such a prominent feature of the AGW rhetoric, tells us more about our fears of the unruly masses in Africa and Asia than it does about science and evidence.

Elegantly put.