Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding
Promoting the role of ecosystem management and natural resource governance is necessary to moving fragile societies onto pathways of resilience.
The connections between environmental issues and conflict are many and complex. Environmental factors themselves are rarely, if ever, the sole cause of violence. But natural resources and other environmental factors are linked to violent conflict in a variety of ways often obscured by more visible issues, such as ethnic tension and power politics. Our experts reveal the links among environmental change, natural resources and security. We also focus on what can be done about these links: namely, trying to better understand how peacebuilding practitioners, working in fragile states, can integrate climate risks and considerations into their work to ensure that it is sustainable and that it supports the transition from fragility to peace.
- Blog
The Environmental Consequences of COVID-19 in Fragile States
The COVID-19 pandemic could have severe impacts on the environment in fragile states, compounding the challenges faced by their governments and their populations. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
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The Climate-Conflict Connection: Why aren’t we acting on it?
The two agendas of climate change adaptation and peacebuilding are rarely coordinated—it's time for this to change.
Read More - Briefing Note
The NAP Process and Peacebuilding
This briefing note explores the importance and difficulties of bringing adaptation planning and peacebuilding agendas together in contexts of fragility and instability. It will also highlight some of the countries that have already begun to integrate conflict considerations into their adaptation planning processes.
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Climate Change Hits Vulnerable Communities First and Hardest
Will the 193 United Nations member states who pledged to “leave no one behind” live up to their promise?
Read More - Policy Brief
Managing the Trade-Offs of Transformation Through Foreign Policy
This climate diplomacy essay aims to inspire actors around the world to work together to initiate, manage and monitor the necessary changes needed for a sustainable world.
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Is Vanadium the “Valyrian Steel” of the Energy Transition?
In Game of Thrones, a sword forged out of Valyrian steel is recognized for its unparalleled strength and light weight. It is this advantage that denotes it as one of Westeros’s most sought-after materials. In the real world, its equivalent just might be vanadium.
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Dead Batteries Deserve a Second Life
Batteries should be recycled, so the valuable minerals therein—including cobalt and lithium—can stay in the economy.
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Sustainability and Second Life: The case for cobalt and lithium recycling
Adopting recycling in the mining sector and in supply chains is essential to ensure the transition to a low-carbon economy is responsible and sustainable for the longer term.
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Green Conflict Minerals: The fuels of conflict in the transition to a low-carbon economy
This reports seeks to understand how the transition to a low-carbon economy—and the minerals and metals required to make that shift—could affect fragility, conflict and violence dynamics in mineral-rich states.
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Electric Vehicles vs. Fuel-Efficient Used Cars: Which really drives sustainability?
Debates surrounding the merits of electric vehicles versus fuel-efficient used cars have typically focused on carbon emissions and energy use only—but what of the conflict implications?
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