Publications
Articles, publications, books, tools and multimedia features from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest news, analysis, research findings, practitioner guides and reports, all related to the conflict zones and issues that are at the center of the Institute’s work to prevent and reduce violent conflict.
The Peacebuilding Implications of the Latest U.N. Climate Report
This week, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its most extensive and alarming report yet. The findings made clear that the window to stifle the worst impacts of climate change is rapidly closing — and that efforts to protect the most vulnerable communities have fallen short thus far. This places peacebuilders in a difficult bind, as unchecked climate change correlates to increased conflict, but rapid adaptions and a wholesale transition to green energy risk further disruption in already fragile regions. USIP’s Tegan Blaine looks at how climate policy and peacebuilding can work together to ensure that we stay ahead of the climate curve while still putting affected communities on the path toward long-term peace and stability.
On Climate: To Save the Human Planet, Ally with Human Faith
Humanity’s preservation of a habitable planet now requires policymakers, environmentalists and others to rally billions of people in resisting climate change through a painful remaking of our very economies and societies. Our struggle to build this unprecedented global commitment — notably against headwinds of pandemics, poverty and wars — urgently requires that we build partnership and synergy with a powerful group of allies: religious communities.
Tegan Blaine on Climate Change and Peacebuilding
After the annual PeaceCon featured climate change as one of the conference’s main themes, USIP’s Tegan Blaine says, “It’s no longer possible to say that climate change does not intersect with peacebuilding. The realities are there … we need to be more honest about what the likely impacts are going to be.”
Glasgow’s Summit Will Spur Change—on Climate and in Conflicts
When the 26th Conference of Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change closed over the weekend in Glasgow, delegates and observers left with both disappointment that so little had happened and relief that so much had. As the world now weighs the results of the Glasgow climate summit, the global peacebuilding community should do the same. We should analyze where the summit might alter risks of violent conflict and opportunities for the community—including peacebuilding organizations, local civil society groups and policymakers—to respond.
Tegan Blaine on the COP26 Summit
As the climate summit wraps up, USIP’s Tegan Blaine says the focus on net-zero commitments overshadowed immediate concerns such as addressing climate-driven migration: “We needed to commit to these things 10 years ago, 20 years ago … and we didn’t. So now the time is quite short.”
Facing Climate-Driven Migration and Displacement Head-On
In the run-up to the COP26 summit on climate change, the U.S. government released its Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration on October 21 — one of three major climate reports, along with the National Intelligence Estimate and the climate risk analysis by the Department of Defense, from the Biden administration. With these reports, the U.S. government now formally recognizes that climate change is likely to contribute to significant displacement and migration, and with it, political and social instability that jeopardize U.S. interests.
Navigating Land Rights in the Transition to Green Energy
With the global energy sector responsible for two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions, renewable energy has enormous potential to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis while simultaneously addressing energy poverty in developing states worldwide. However, clean energy development is far from smooth sailing, as renewable energy infrastructure requires ten times more land than the fossil fuel equivalent to generate the same power.
Tegan Blaine on How Climate Change Impacts Global Conflict
USIP’s Tegan Blaine says we must be cognizant of how efforts to reduce climate change can exacerbate instability and conflict, as the resources needed for a greener global economy “are in places where the countries are already politically fragile” and higher demand adds more stress to already burdened institutions.
Climate change risks new violent conflict. How to respond?
As climate change amplifies weather disasters and destabilizes food and water supplies, recent research is confirming its effects on the global south: Our planet’s warming is weakening already fragile states, increasing the risk of violent conflicts and accelerating human displacement and migration. Like any global shock, it is putting poorer nations most at risk. The United States and the international community can counter these rising hazards by setting basic priorities in assistance programs. Among these are to target cities with a strategy that helps local populations adapt to climate change and manage conflicts nonviolently, and to strengthen regional organizations’ abilities to tackle fragility problems.
Can the World Go Green Without Destabilizing Oil-Pumping Nations?
Amid the dizzying acceleration of headlines and debate about the vital global transition to renewable energy, new research shows how that change could destabilize dozens of fragile states that depend heavily on oil exports. The new study underscores that governments and international institutions will need to guard against risks that the shift away from carbon-heavy fuels will inadvertently upset political balances and potentially ignite violent conflicts in a swath of nations from Venezuela to Nigeria to Iraq and beyond. Above all, the research suggests, the world must avoid an unplanned “traumatic decarbonization” of these economies.