Climate Change, Crime: A Big, Bad, Largely Overlooked Nexus

The document explores the 'climate-crime nexus,' detailing how environmental stresses drive rural petty crime, urban violence, drug use, gender-based violence, hate crimes, trafficking, and white-collar crime. It highlights how climate-induced economic collapse and extreme heat increase desperation and aggression, while the green transition creates new opportunities for organized crime and corruption.

• Climate-induced collapse in agriculture and pastoralism is driving an increase in rural non-violent crimes, such as housebreaking and livestock rustling, particularly in the Sahel region where herders in Senegal, Chad, and Burkina Faso face significant losses.
• Extreme heat is linked to surges in aggression and violent crime in urban areas. In the US, over 85% of mass shootings in 2022 occurred between June and September, and violence in un-air-conditioned prisons increases by nearly 20% on hot days.
• Climate-driven migration to cities like Kathmandu, Baghdad, and Port Moresby is contributing to increased violence, including fights between day laborers and intensified gang activity among jobless young migrants.
• Environmental stress and economic hardship are influencing drug markets; for example, in Afghanistan, opium poppy cultivation increased due to low yields of traditional crops during droughts, and in rural Jordan, the use of synthetic drugs like Captagon has risen as a coping mechanism for intolerable heat and loneliness.
• Gender-based violence (GBV) often surges during or after extreme weather events, with reports of increased attacks during droughts and excessive rainfall, and a spike in calls to women's shelters in Houston following Hurricane Beryl in July 2024.
• Climate stresses contribute to hate crimes and the rise of far-right political movements, as migrants in Greece or pastoralists in West Africa are scapegoated for climate-related disasters.
• Climate change fuels human and wildlife trafficking; in Egypt's northern Nile Delta, rising seas and warming waters have pushed some residents to sell boats to smugglers or participate in illicit migration to Europe.
• The energy transition and climate finance create new avenues for white-collar and organized crime, including 'climate-washing,' corruption in carbon markets, and attempts by Mexican drug cartels to enter the lithium extraction sector.

APA

The Council on Strategic Risks (2024). Climate Change, Crime: A Big, Bad, Largely Overlooked Nexus. https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2024/10/17/climate-change-crime-a-big-bad-largely-overlooked-nexus/

Chicago

The Council on Strategic Risks. Climate Change, Crime: A Big, Bad, Largely Overlooked Nexus. 2024. https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2024/10/17/climate-change-crime-a-big-bad-largely-overlooked-nexus/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=The Council on Strategic Risks |title=Climate Change, Crime: A Big, Bad, Largely Overlooked Nexus |date=17 October 2024 |url=https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2024/10/17/climate-change-crime-a-big-bad-largely-overlooked-nexus/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{thecouncilonstrategicrisks2024climate, author = {{The Council on Strategic Risks}}, title = {{Climate Change, Crime: A Big, Bad, Largely Overlooked Nexus}}, institution = {The Council on Strategic Risks}, year = {2024}, month = oct, url = {https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2024/10/17/climate-change-crime-a-big-bad-largely-overlooked-nexus/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }