气候在助长内战和其他冲突方面发挥了虽小但重要的作用, researchers find

7月一个闷热的下午，在肯尼亚北部偏远的达巴村, 博彩平台推荐地理学教授约翰·奥拉夫林被部落首领放鸽子. 

O 'Loughlin和他的同事们在干旱肆虐的地区沿着尘土飞扬的道路开了几个小时的车，采访当地的领导人, and how, climate change is impacting violence levels there. The moment they pulled up, they got some answers. 

“We were told he’d been gone three days,” O’Loughlin recalls, 描述了那个星期早些时候30名袭击者如何横扫村庄, 偷了100头牛，并促使酋长和一支武装队伍去追捕他们. “My guess is, if they caught up with them, it ended in violence.”

The recent, 由于降雨模式的变化，在非洲大陆和世界其他地方引发了无数小规模冲突, rising temperatures, 自然灾害和其他气候变化加剧了民族冲突, religious and political tensions to a violent boiling point.

In recent decades, 与气候有关的因素在助长内战和其他武装冲突方面发挥了虽小但重要的作用, influencing between 3% and 20% globally, 根据奥洛林与人合著并发表在该杂志上的一项研究 Nature. But with global temperatures projected to rise 7.到本世纪末(在温室气体排放没有实质性减少的情况下)，四分之一的武装冲突将很快成为气候变化的结果, the paper suggests.

“These will be the wars of the future,” says O’Loughlin, 他是行为科学研究所的研究员，也是研究所谓“气候战争”的主要学者.”

“我对非洲当地的长者进行了几十次采访，他们普遍认为, while they have managed to share resources and cooperate so far, 由于气候变化，控制暴力变得越来越困难.” 

The final spark

气候变化和武装冲突之间的联系一直备受争议. 一些学者指出，叙利亚和达尔富尔(苏丹)的冲突是由干旱引发的移民引发的典型气候战争. Others, including O’Loughlin, have been more skeptical in the past, pointing to corrupt regimes, poverty and ethnic and religious differences as the primary culprits.

But the new Nature 这篇论文由斯坦福大学领导，由11位政治学专家合作完成, economics, environmental science, 和平研究和其他学科——标志着在这个问题上达成了新的共识. 它的底线是:是的，气候变化助长了暴力冲突，而且它正准备变得更糟.

“Climate change is not, in and of itself a risk, but it works through other risks creating a multiplier effect,” O’Loughlin says.

He still believes that things like unstable government, 社会内部巨大的经济不平等和暴力历史都是更大、更确定的冲突驱动因素.

But as he has seen firsthand through his field research, 干旱、洪水或农作物损失——以及由此带来的痛苦——叠加在这些脆弱性之上，可能会把事情推到边缘, leading more young men in particular to take up arms. 

In one study, O 'Loughlin发现，当一个地区的气温比长期平均水平高出两个标准差时——对于肯尼亚这样的地方来说大约是2华氏度——暴力冲突就会飙升30%.

Migration also plays a role. As water sources dry up, 人们为了寻找动物的食物和肥沃的土地而搬迁, 他们经常遇到那些资源已经捉襟见肘的人的抵制. In one 2018 study, O 'Loughlin和他的同事发现，由于干旱而临时迁移的肯尼亚人遭受暴力的可能性是其他肯尼亚人的三倍.

“预计受气候变化影响严重的地区将出现大量移民外流. Some places will frankly be unlivable,” he says. 

这些因素已经在助长牧民和农民之间的流血冲突. In Nigeria alone, according to Amnesty International, more than 2,000 people were killed in such conflicts in 2018.

“这比恐怖组织博科圣地杀害的人数还要多, but you rarely hear about this in the news,” notes O’Loughlin.

他最近和人类学教授Terry McCabe以及研究生Sarah Posner在肯尼亚北部呆了几个星期, 采访部落领袖，并启动一项新的研究，在这项研究中，他将在一年中每两个月用手机调查500名当地人，了解天气模式的变化如何影响他们的生计和遭受暴力的风险. 

When he first arrived in the study area of Isiolo, 他看到报纸标题上写着“200万人面临饥饿的危险”.”

“Pasture-lands are drying up, people are hungry, and raiders are stealing from their neighbors,” he said. “Everyone is worried about climate change.”

In addition to a vast humanitarian toll, 迫在眉睫的气候战争威胁可能带来全球安全风险, he adds, 在干旱或洪水肆虐的地区，陷入困境的年轻人越来越想加入激进组织.

但他认为，这些情况中的许多都可以通过投资农作物保险等来预防, 在受气候变化影响严重的地区建立收获后储存设施和更具弹性的供水系统.

Now that there is some long-awaited consensus around the issue, he hopes policy makers will take notice.

“现在的问题是:发达国家会在多大程度上忽视这个问题，又会在多大程度上介入?”