Scientists: environmental crises do not lead to conflict - neomalthusian theory challenged

Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) announce they have made a surprising discovery that is set to spark controversy: there is no connection between resource scarcity, environmental crises and armed conflict. They conclude that working for a better environment does not necessarily lead to peace. The empirical findings even show the contrary: lands where resources are heavily exploited show a clear connection to a lack of deadly armed conflict. The study challenges the neomalthusian model often used in popular explanations of the factors responsible for modern conflicts in the developing world. The findings are reported in the journal Population and Environment.

The counter-intuitive results come at a time when climate advocate Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for their work on global warming, while Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai received the same prize in 2004 for her work with the Green Belt Movement.

Helga Malmin Binningsbø, Indra de Soysa and Nils Petter Gleditsch - from NTNU’s Department of Sociology and Political Science, from the Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW), and from the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) - doubt whether the Nobel Committee’s explanation for the award makes sense. The Committee said:

Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

The Nobel Committee interprets 'working for peace' as including saving the Earth’s environment. Researchers, advocacy groups, politicians and the media have all highlighted local resource crises as the reason for a host of armed conflicts around the globe. The premise underlying the Nobel Committee’s expanded definition of peace is that there is a causal connection between natural resource shortages and violent conflict.

But is that true? The new empirical study shows it's not. What is more: the contrary is true.

Counter-intuitive
A series of case studies in recent years from areas stricken by conflict has helped develop a theoretical basis for the claim that natural resource scarcity leads to armed conflict. Darfur, Sudan, is a recent example of this presumed causal connection, with Rwanda, Haiti and Somalia as other examples.

The NTNU scientists looked at the environmental pressures in 150 countries in the period from 1961 to 1999. By using an internationally recognized technique for measuring a country’s environmental sustainability – 'The Ecological Footprint' – the researchers were able to compare these numbers with statistics on armed conflict during the same period.

Their conclusion may seem paradoxical: lands where resources are heavily exploited show a clear connection to a lack of armed conflict. Or alternatively, nations troubled by war during the research period had lower exploitation rates of their natural resources. The findings give researchers solid empirical support for stating that environmental scarcity is not the reason behind violent conflict:

• a higher Ecological Footprint is negatively correlated with conflict onset, controlling for income effects and other factors
• of course people fight over resources, that is not the argument. "We believe, rather, that we have a strong scientific case against the Neomalthusian model", the scientists write
  

Neomalthusianism wrong
In their article, the NTNU researchers challenge the increasingly popular school of socio-economic thought known as the Neomalthusian school. They see climate change and the over consumption of natural resources as a modern day illustration of Thomas Malthus’ theory:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: natural resources :: biocapacity :: ecological footprint :: climate change :: ecology :: war :: neo-malthusianism ::

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) developed the well-known theory that a country’s food production cannot keep up with its population growth over the long run. Starvation, war and early death would regulate the balance between food availability and population numbers. That means that the bulk of the population would live a minimalist existence. But Malthus, who lived at the end of the 1700s, couldn’t predict later technological breakthroughs, such as the Green Revolution, which have altered his bleak global caloric intake equation.

Techniques developed by the Global Footprint Network, an international research network, form the underpinnings for the NTNU group’s research numbers and methods:

The Environmental Footprint describes a country’s resource consumption compared to its ecological capacity, explain Binningsbø and de Soysa. The Ecological Footprint measures humankind’s exploitation of natural resources. In other words, how much do you have, and how much do you use?

The method is widely used as a measurement technique, but has also been criticised. Researchers have argued that the method can only be applied on a global basis, in as much as countries trade with each other, and therefore aren’t necessarily solely dependent on their own natural resources.

So far there have been few systematic quantitative or comparative studies, and the few that exist have focused on particular forms of environmental degradation or on a small subset of resources, particularly mineral wealth.

The scientists tested a more general argument about the effects of resource scarcity by examining the most widely-used measure of environmental sustainability: the ecological footprint. Contrary to neomalthusian thinking, they find that countries with a heavier footprint have a substantially greater chance of peace.

Biocapacity and the ecological reserve also predict to peace, but these results are more fragile.

Finally, separate tests for smaller conflicts, for the post-Cold War period, and with additional control variables do not yield stronger support for the scarcity thesis either.


The findings are highly important for the fields of development economics, for policies dealing with natural resource exploitation and for the debate about the socio-economic effects of climate change and its mitigation.

The International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) based in Oslo was founded in 1959 and became a fully independent institute in 1966. It was one of the first centres of peace research in the world. Its founding and early influence were instrumental in projecting the idea of peace research. Today, PRIO is one of the most widely recognized centers for the analysis of the driving forces behind violent conflict and on ways in which peace can be built, maintained and spread.

In addition to theoretical and empirical research, PRIO also conducts policy-oriented activities and engages in the search for solutions in cases of actual or potential violent conflict. This combination of scholarship and practice has brought PRIO closer to meeting the normative ambitions of peace research: to apply high-quality academic standards to the study of peace and conflict, and to help diminish violent conflict in practice.

Image: soldier in Darfur. Scientists find natural resource exploitation and environmental crises are not connected to armed conflict. On the contrary, the lower a country's environmental footprint, the higher its chance for such conflicts. Credit: Reuters.

References:
Helga Malmin Binningsbø, Indra de Soysa, Nils Petter Gleditsch, "Green giant or straw man? Environmental pressure and civil conflict, 1961–99", Population and Environment, Volume 28, Number 6 / July, 2007, DOI: 10.1007/s11111-007-0053-6

AlphaGalileo: Does working for a better environment really lead to peace? - December 12, 2007.

The Global Footprint Network.