Austrian researchers have made it simpler to identify climate refugees, claiming to have established a direct causal link between climate change, conflict and the numbers of migrants.
They are not the first to confirm that there is a statistical association between the likelihood of drought, or heat extremes, and violence.
Evidence of cause for any civil or international conflict is always complex and often disputed.
“But in a context of poor governance and a medium level of democracy, severe climate conditions can create conflict over scarce resources.” Specific conditions He and colleagues report in the journal Global Environmental Change that they looked at data from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees of asylum applications from 157 countries between 2006 and 2015.
And they found that – in specific circumstances – climatic conditions do lead to increased migration as a consequence of conflict exacerbated by the more severe droughts.
Hard to establish All conclusions about human behaviour at the political level are difficult to establish.
The connection between climate conditions and human response is less certain in a disputed world.
Researchers have systematically found associations between climate and violence and between climate and the conditions for civil inequality.
Urgent prospect Some have found an association between drought and the conflict in Syria, but others have disputed the conclusion.
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