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Rethinking climate conflicts: The role of climate action and inaction
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Rethinking climate conflicts: The role of climate action and inaction

Tobias Ide
World development, Vol.186, 106845
2025
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CC BY V4.0 Open Access

Abstract

Environment Green transformation Peace Security Sustainability Violence
The climate-conflict nexus has attracted significant academic and policy interest, but such discussions are often based on a narrow conception of the phenomenon. This article proposes a broader understanding of climate conflicts, which can be related to (1) the direct impacts of climate inaction (e.g., activism for ambitious climate change mitigation), (2) the direct impacts of climate action (e.g., resistance against fossil fuel subsidy cuts), (3) the indirect impacts of climate inaction (e.g., communal tensions over water in vulnerable locations), and (4) the indirect impacts of climate action (e.g., opposition against mining for renewable energies). After assessing existing evidence on these four types of climate conflicts, I outline the benefits of such a broader understanding: It reveals that climate conflicts are widespread and inevitable, including in the Global North. Such a rethinking enables an integrative analysis of the manifold teleconnections and trade-offs in the climate-conflict nexus, hence highlighting the relevance of conflict sensitivity in climate policy and environmental governance. Finally, this broader understanding of climate conflicts enables productive exchanges across different streams of research, including securitisation, political ecology, and decolonial approaches.

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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#13 Climate Action

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Citation topics
6 Social Sciences
6.27 Political Science
6.27.50 International Relations
Web Of Science research areas
Development Studies
Economics
ESI research areas
Social Sciences, general
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