Resource scarcity, climate change and the risk of violent conflict

This paper provides a brief assessment of how natural resource scarcity and global climate change may change the risk of violent conflict in the future. The resource scarcity element of the paper is primarily focused on resources required to meet basic needs such as food, land and water, as opposed to high value commodities associated with the 'resource curse', such as diamonds, coltan or hardwood (although oil is touched on in the paper, primarily because of the linkages between oil and other scarcity issues). The paper begins with an overview of projected trends in resource scarcity and climate change. It emphasizes that problems of resource availability may be as much the result of poor governance as physical constraints, and that the risk posed by climate change or resource scarcity depends as much on the vulnerability of populations, ecosystems, economies and institutions as on the magnitude of climate or scarcity impacts themselves. Resource availability must be seen not as a stand-alone issue, but rather in the context of the overall political economy landscape. The paper then discusses ways in which these trends may affect conflict risk, including already-established links and ways in which such links may evolve in the future, including under abrupt change scenarios. The paper concludes with some brief remarks on possible avenues of exploration for conflict prevention and building resilience in the light of scarcity and climate change.