Conflicting messages? The IPCC on conflict and human security – Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

This research paper evaluates the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report's treatment of the relationship between climate change and conflict, noting improvements over previous reports but highlighting internal inconsistencies and a lack of probability assessments.

• The IPCC's Third and Fourth Assessment Reports, published in 2001 and 2007, were criticized for providing only a shallow discussion of how climate change might impact conflict, with mentions appearing only in scattered locations.
• The Fifth Assessment Report's Human Security chapter provides a more rigorous assessment, stating there is robust evidence that human security will be threatened by climate change, yet it concludes that collective research does not show a strong positive relationship between warming and armed conflict.
• The Fifth Assessment Report contains internal inconsistencies regarding the climate-conflict link, with the Africa chapter and the 'Emergent trends' chapter offering more dramatic conclusions, while the 'Detection and attribution' chapter dismisses the link entirely.
• A significant weakness in the Fifth Assessment Report is the absence of clear probability levels in causal statements, relying instead on vague terms such as 'may' and 'has the potential to'.

APA

Peace Research Institute Oslo (2014). Conflicting messages? The IPCC on conflict and human security – Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). https://www.prio.org/publications/7497

Chicago

Peace Research Institute Oslo. Conflicting messages? The IPCC on conflict and human security – Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). 2014. https://www.prio.org/publications/7497.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Peace Research Institute Oslo |title=Conflicting messages? The IPCC on conflict and human security – Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) |date=6 October 2014 |url=https://www.prio.org/publications/7497 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{peaceresearchinstituteoslo2014conflicting, author = {{Peace Research Institute Oslo}}, title = {{Conflicting messages? The IPCC on conflict and human security – Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)}}, institution = {Peace Research Institute Oslo}, year = {2014}, month = oct, url = {https://www.prio.org/publications/7497}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }