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CLISEC

Photo: Jürgen Scheffran

Climate Change and Security at the Crossroads: Pathways to Conflict or Cooperation?

Research context of this conference

Research on the security implications of climate change has so far been inconclusive. While some studies have focused on direct climate change impacts or large-n statistical analyses, other studies based on anecdotal and case study evidence are making generalizations difficult. Moreover, the temporal and spatial scales of climate science and human-climate interactions remain divergent despite recent advances to bridge the gap between these two realms of climate change impact assessment. This conference aims at bringing together researchers from different disciplines and world regions to explore the pathways from climate change to conflict and cooperation. One focus is to analyze key causal chains utilizing theory, field research, and data-driven studies.

The conference aims at:  

(1)     bringing together field work and large-n studies
(2)     accounting for the complexity of climate security linkages by discussing the key pathways and feedbacks between climate change and security
(3)     facilitating a debate on climate wars versus climate peace
(4)     identifying data gaps, methods, and vulnerable regions based on an integrated framework

The conference will be organized along the following conference themes:

(1)     water security
(2)     food security
(3)     disasters and security
(4)     migration and security
(5)     integrating themes (climate change adaptation, mitigation, climate-engineering)

 

Date of the conference

June 20-21, 2013

Conference program

Please follow this link to access the program.

Conference venue

University of Agder
Kristiansand
Norway

 

Organization of the conference

The conference was hosted by the Department of Development Studies, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway, in collaboration with the Research Group Climate and Security (CLISEC), KlimaCampus, University of Hamburg, Germany. The conference was supported by the Research Council of Norway and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

 

Steering committee

Christian Webersik (University of Agder), Jürgen Scheffran, P. Michael Link, Jasmin Kominek (all CLISEC, KlimaCampus Hamburg), Michael Brzoska (Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy Hamburg), Janpeter Schilling (Colgate University), Ole Magnus Theisen (PRIO), Ilan Kelman (CICERO).