Cappelli Federica, Costantini Valeria, D'Angeli Mariagrazia, Marin Giovanni, Paglialunga Elena
Department of Economics and Management, University of Ferrara, via Voltapaletto, 11 - 44121, Ferrara, Italy.
Department of Economics, University of Roma Tre, Via Silvio D'Amico 77, 00145, Rome, Italy.
J Environ Manage. 2024 Mar;355:120403. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.120403. Epub 2024 Feb 29.
While socioeconomic and institutional factors are crucial in explaining the onset and evolution of conflicts, recent research suggests that climate change is a further indirect driver acting as a "threat multiplier". This paper focuses on the concept of vulnerability to both climate change and conflicts to explain why some locations are more likely to engage in armed conflicts than others in the presence of a similar level of exposure to climatic changes. In particular, by means of a Spatial Autoregressive Model, we identify a set of local-specific vulnerability factors that increase conflict risk in East Africa. We employ a georeferenced database with a resolution of 25 × 25 km, covering the period 1997-2016. Results from our analysis provide some interesting insights: first, climate change does not increase conflict risk per se, but only in the presence of pre-existing vulnerabilities. Second, resource access and socioeconomic factors play a key role in driving the climate-conflict nexus especially in urban areas. In particular, vulnerability is increased whenever power is not distributed in such a way as to ensure an equitable distribution of resources. Overall, our findings suggest that, by addressing vulnerability factors that prevent adaptive capacity and an equitable distribution of resources, societies may benefit in terms of both diminished conflict risk and alleviation of climate change impacts.
虽然社会经济和制度因素在解释冲突的爆发和演变方面至关重要，但最近的研究表明，气候变化是另一个间接驱动因素，起到了“威胁倍增器”的作用。本文关注对气候变化和冲突的脆弱性概念，以解释为什么在面临类似气候变化暴露水平的情况下，一些地区比其他地区更有可能卷入武装冲突。特别是，通过空间自回归模型，我们确定了一组增加东非冲突风险的当地特定脆弱性因素。我们使用了一个分辨率为25×25公里的地理参考数据库，涵盖1997 - 2016年期间。我们的分析结果提供了一些有趣的见解：首先，气候变化本身并不会增加冲突风险，而是只有在存在预先存在的脆弱性时才会增加。其次，资源获取和社会经济因素在推动气候与冲突的联系方面发挥着关键作用，尤其是在城市地区。特别是，每当权力分配方式不能确保资源公平分配时，脆弱性就会增加。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，通过解决阻碍适应能力和资源公平分配的脆弱性因素，社会在降低冲突风险和减轻气候变化影响方面可能会受益。
