30.Oct

October 30th, 2014

Climate change: Risk of conflict and civil unrest in 32 countries

EDITOR:	Murat Suner, London

According to Maplecroft, a global risk analytics company, a "worrying combination of climate change vulnerability and food insecurity is amplifying the risks of conflict and civil unrest in 32 countries".

Maplecroft's seventh annual Climate Change and Environmental Risk Atlas (CCERA) provides comparable risk data for 198 countries across 26 separate issues, including climate change vulnerability and food security, as well as emissions, ecosystem services, natural disasters and regulation.

The findings correlate with recent reports released by the Pentagon that identified climate change as a ‘threat multiplier,’ which escalates the risk of conflicts and unrest.

Maplecroft developed a Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), which evaluates the sensitivity of populations, the physical exposure of countries, and governmental capacity to adapt to climate change over the next 30 years.

According to this index 32 countries are under extreme risk. One of the unifying characteristics of these economies is that they depend heavily on agriculture. Changing weather patterns are already impacting food production, poverty, migration and social stability, and thus significantly increasing the risk of conflicts and instability in fragile and emerging states.