Climate–conflict research: some reflections on the way forward

A decade of systematic research on climate change and armed conflict has revealed a number interesting patterns but few results that are robust across studies. This essay takes stock of the quantitative empirical literature, identifies central limitations, and presents five priorities for future research in the field. While these priorities refer to technical and operational aspects of statistical analysis, their underlying motivation, and objective, is to develop a better and more refined theoretical understanding of possible indirect and conditional connections between climatic changes and violent conflict.