Does warming increase the risk of civil war in Africa?

Sutton, Alexandra E.; Dohn, Justin; Loyd, Kara; Tredennick, Andrew T.; Bucini, Gabriela; Solórzano, Alexandro; Prihodko, L.; Hanan, Niall P.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1005278107

Cited by 28 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…As discussed by Scheffran and Battaglini (2010), the pressure created by projected climate change seems likely to lead to increasing conflicts and their causalities. Sutton et al (2010) suggest that projected climate change effects could cause civil wars in Africa by the 2030s (warming at this time would likely be below 1.5°C above pre-industrial).…”

Section: Food Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate hotspots: key vulnerable regions, climate change and limits to warming

et al. 2011

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Defining and operationalizing Article 2 of the UNFCCC remains a challenge. The question of what is dangerous climate change is not a purely scientific one, as danger necessarily has a subjective dimension and its definition requires judgment and precaution. The papers in this special issue of Regional Environmental Change attempt to navigate this problem, by offering an overview of the latest scientific findings in the context of risks and uncertainties, and assess some key vulnerabilities that might lead to dangerous climate change. This synthesis provides an overview of the papers in this issue and looks at four areas of possible dangerous climate changeadverse declines in regional food and water security, loss of arctic sea ice with projected extinction of species, largescale sea-level rise and loss of coral reef systems. These issues affect a number of different regions including Africa, South Asia, and Small Island Developing States. Significant risks to vulnerable regions and systems at warming levels of 1.5-2°C above pre-industrial are identified. The direct effects of CO 2 concentration increases in terms of ocean acidification are identified as relevant to Article 2 because of the risks posed to coral reefs. Ultimate CO 2 stabilization levels that allow for the long-term viability of coral reefs likely are below 350 ppm. The paper concludes by arguing that the emission reduction pledges made by countries under the Copenhagen Accord will not suffice to prevent dangerous climate change.

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Section: Food Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate hotspots: key vulnerable regions, climate change and limits to warming

et al. 2011

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“…Sutton et al (2) raise two concerns with our findings: that the relationship between temperature and war is based on common trends and is therefore spurious, and that our model appears overly sensitive to small specification changes. Both concerns reflect a basic misunderstanding of the analysis.…”

mentioning

confidence: 78%

“…In particular, Sutton et al (2) worry that temperature might either "proxy" for other causal variables or be correlated over time with other unrelated processes that also affect civil war. The effect of temperature on war clearly occurs through some intermediate channel, and we argue for the likely role of precisely the variables that Sutton et al (2) mention (soil moisture and agricultural productivity).…”

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confidence: 99%

Reply to Sutton et al.: Relationship between temperature and conflict is robust

Burke¹,

Miguel

Satyanath

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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LETTERReply to Sutton et al.: Relationship between temperature and conflict is robustIn a recent paper, we documented strong historical linkages between temperature and civil conflict in Africa (1). Sutton et al.(2) raise two concerns with our findings: that the relationship between temperature and war is based on common trends and is therefore spurious, and that our model appears overly sensitive to small specification changes. Both concerns reflect a basic misunderstanding of the analysis.In particular, Sutton et al. (2) worry that temperature might either "proxy" for other causal variables or be correlated over time with other unrelated processes that also affect civil war. The effect of temperature on war clearly occurs through some intermediate channel, and we argue for the likely role of precisely the variables that Sutton et al. (2) mention (soil moisture and agricultural productivity). High temperatures tend to reduce African crop yields and depress rural incomes (3), declines that many benchmark studies implicate in the incidence of civil war (4). However, because variables such as income both affect and are affected by civil conflict, including them directly as regressors is problematic (5), and thus proxy variables (what economists call instrumental variables) (6) must be used. The fact that temperature is a strong instrument for African economic outcomes underpins-rather than undermines-our study.Furthermore, our econometric approach deals directly with the concern that temperature might be correlated over time with other explanatory variables: we identify the effects of temperature on conflict through year-to-year deviations from countrylevel average temperature, which are unlikely to be spuriously correlated to unrelated social phenomena. We control for the influence of unrelated trending variables using country-specific time trends that account for trends in conflict finance, decolonization, or any other time-varying unobservable of concern. That our temperature coefficient is robust to inclusion of these time trends suggests that temperature is indeed causal.The second concern of Sutton et al. (2) is the apparent "fragility" of the statistical models we present, evidenced by changes in R 2 across the model specifications shown in ref. In particular, models 1 and 2 include country-specific time trends as control variables, whereas model 3 instead uses explicit controls for regime type and income. Because country-specific time trends will pick up the influence of all time-trending variables, models 1 and 2 will soak up more of the variation in our dependent variable and thus yield a higher model R 2 . Our paper does not argue that temperature is the only-or even the primary-determinant of civil war. Further work is needed to understand how climate affects civil war, and we note this clearly in our paper. The conclusion of Sutton et al. (2) that our study might "discourage meaningful engagement" is curious given the explicit suggestions for public policy engagement we offer in the paper's conclusio...

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“…Importantly, this definition allows us to infer causality through quantitative measurements even if the detailed pathway linking a cause to its effect is not fully understood. Some authors have argued that a causal effect of climate on conflict cannot be inferred without identifying a complete causal chain of mechanisms (Sutton et al 2010;Buhaug 2010), however this is not true (Rubin 1974;Holland 1986;Freedman 1991;Angrist and Pischke 2008). If inference without precise causal pathways were not possible, individuals who do not understand the thermodynamics of a car engine could not infer whether or not stepping on a car's accelerator pedal caused the car to move forward.…”

Section: Conf Lict and Social Instabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Burke et al continue to find that total rainfall is negatively associated with civil war incidence but discover that temperature is positively correlated with the civil war incidence, with the latter association appearing to be relatively stronger and more robust. While this finding was criticized for not establishing the precise causal pathway through which temperature lead to conflict (Sutton et al 2010), this inability does not prohibit Burke et al from drawing causal inferences (Burke et al 2010c).…”

Section: Africa-only Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate, conflict, and social stability: what does the evidence say?

2013

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Are violent conflict and socio-political stability associated with changes in climatological variables? We examine 50 rigorous quantitative studies on this question and find consistent support for a causal association between climatological changes and various conflict outcomes, at spatial scales ranging from individual buildings to the entire globe and at temporal scales ranging from an anomalous hour to an anomalous millennium. Multiple mechanisms that could explain this association have been proposed and are sometimes supported by findings, but the literature is currently unable to decisively exclude any proposed pathway. Several mechanisms likely contribute to the outcomes that we observe.

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Does warming increase the risk of civil war in Africa?

Cited by 28 publications

References 3 publications

Climate hotspots: key vulnerable regions, climate change and limits to warming

Climate hotspots: key vulnerable regions, climate change and limits to warming

Reply to Sutton et al.: Relationship between temperature and conflict is robust

Climate, conflict, and social stability: what does the evidence say?

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