The relationship between climate change and conflict is the subject of voluminous recent research. With a few exceptions, this literature has not been able to establish the existence of a robust, systematic, causal relationship. This may reflect the absence of such a relationship in the real world. Or, this is simply a consequence of the theoretical and methodological limitations of existing works. This project revisited this issue along two dimensions.

First, it carefully specified the mechanism through which climate may affect the incidence of conflict. In particular, by focusing on the chain linking climatic conditions, economic welfare, and conflict, the study emphasized how the latter part of this link depends critically on the institutional features of the political system. Second, at a methodological level the research team’s measures of key climatic conditions (temperature and precipitation) included exogenous figures of both economic conditions and conflict. Thereby, it solved the simultaneity problem that had plagued the literature in the past. The results provided a more reliable basis for testing the theoretical predictions of the project team and for evaluating policy.