Exploring complex pathways in the climate change, vulnerability and conflict nexus in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala

Abstract

The climate change and conflict nexus has been the focus of much debate and speculation in academic circles as well as public discourse. Much of the existing research has been undertaken by studies using quantitative methods, which intend to prove or disprove the existence of a causal relationship. However, this approach does little to help inform policy and practice, where a deeper understanding of the mediating factors in the relationship and their interplay is needed. This thesis investigates the climate change – violent conflict nexus within the context of Alta Verapaz, a department in the central highlands of Guatemala. The aim was to conduct an in-depth analysis of the pathways between climate change and violent conflicts in a fragile context by focusing on vulnerability, to identify opportunities to build local resilience to these risks. A mixed methods approach was taken, combining quantitative survey questionnaires and a qualitative dataset of interviews with government officials, NGOs and key informants, as well as grey literature gathered during the fieldtrip. Results indicate that although climate change is having a noted impact on temperature and rainfall in the department and thus on people’s livelihoods, inadequate adaptation measures have led to increased vulnerability levels. The political economy in the area has given rise to situations of conflict, rather than stress related to climate change. Conflict drivers include ethnic-based governance, large-scale land acquisition (LSLA) and the presence of extractive industries and hydro-power plants. Climate change acts as an additional stressor in these political and social conflicts by increasing vulnerability.

Popular Abstract

There is more to it – climate change does not cause violent conflict.
Climate change is not causing violent conflict. It is part of the complex network of factors that together are like a bonfire just waiting for a spark to light it.

Some say that higher temperatures are leading to more violent conflict. The logic is that more heat is causing resources to be scarcer and people will then fight for survival. It makes sense, but it is wrong. The reality is much more complex (and much more interesting). We found a network of factors that contributed to creating an environment where conflicts are more likely to happen. Some of them contribute to the conflicts turning violent.
Great, but why is this even important?
We want to have less violent conflicts. To be able to have less conflicts in the future, we must know what creates them.
Ok, so what factors creates violent conflicts then?
We found three factors that create circumstances where conflicts are more likely to arise and some circumstances that make it more likely that these conflicts turn violent.
One of the three factors is the consequences of climate change, for example drought that makes the harvest fail which cause prices of food to rise. Or it could be that the rising temperatures make it easier for mosquitos to survive and therefore people get more infected with illnesses such as Dengue, Malaria and Zika.
Another factor is that very few projects exist to help the people that live where it is hard to grow crops. Why is that? One reason is that there is no funding for it. Another is that it is unclear who should do the projects, because the government institutions are not good at working together. The third is that the few projects that are being done are helping the people that are not the most in need. The reason is that helping a farmer who is growing cardamom for export is better for business than helping the people who barely have anything and live so far out they are difficult to even reach.
The third factor is big companies such as those in the mining business, in hydroelectric energy and large-scale plantations such as palm oil. What these businesses have in common is that they use up a lot of resources, especially land area where indigenous people live and water that indigenous people use to survive. What they also have in common is that they tend to violate human rights in their areas of operation (and the government tend to do nothing about it).
We have illustrated the ways the various factors that we found in the study are impacting each other (see illustrations)
A bit simplistic, one could say that the people most affected by the effects of climate change didn’t get any help from the government. Instead they got more resources taken away from them by big companies, who also violated their human rights. This combination of dynamics is what we found to be likely to cause violent conflicts in our area of study - the district of Alta Verapaz in Guatemala.
Since we looked at the dynamics in a very specific place, we are not trying to broaden our conclusions to fit the rest of the world. We are not imagining finding a law of nature. Instead, we are making our observations in one place and hopefully others will observe other places after many studies, then we can look for patterns.

• author: Long, Caroline and Hatting, Markus
• supervisor: Mo Hamza
• organization: Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
• course: VBRM15 20181
• year: 2018
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Social Sciences
• keywords: Climate Change, Violent Conflict, Vulnerability, Adaptive Capacity, Fragility, Resilience, Governance, Land-grabbing
• language: English
• id: 8958371
• date added to LUP: 2018-11-14 13:03:35
• date last changed: 2018-11-14 13:03:35