Making Peace With the Climate: Conflict Resolution in a Climate-changing World

Climate change matters to conflict resolution.

Between May and June 2020, the European Institute of Peace conducted a series of structured interviews with more than a dozen senior envoys, peace process facilitators and conflict resolution experts from the EU, UN, governments, and civil society. The interviews explored how and why climate insecurity matters to conflict and conflict resolution practitioners, what lessons have emerged from their experience and what should be prioritised in the future. In July, the Institute hosted a virtual meeting, attended by more than 60 practitioners and experts, to discuss these issues.

This paper is the result of those interviews and that meeting. It presents a cross-section of experience, lessons learned and expectations about what the future holds for practitioners in trying to bring peace in a climate-changed world. The trust is that it may provide the beginnings of an experience-derived and evidence-based analysis of how climate change impacts can be understood and addressed by those endeavouring to enable effective and lasting conflict resolution.