EVERY month, the International Crisis Group makes predictions it hopes won't come true. The non-profit organisation, which has its base in Brussels, Belgium, monitors regions where conflict is brewing. By tracking precursors of armed struggle, such as political instability, it raises awareness about looming wars in the hope of stopping conflicts before they begin. And as of this month, it will start talking about whether to include another variable in its analyses: climate change.

The discussions come after a wave of interest in the link between climate change and conflict. Last month, a group of retired US admirals and generals said global warming would act as a "threat multiplier", with events such as droughts toppling unstable governments and unleashing conflict. The UN Security Council has devoted time to the matter, and media reports have described the crisis in Darfur, Sudan, as the first "climate change war", due to the decades of droughts that preceded the conflict.

"Global warming could act as a 'threat multiplier', with events such as droughts toppling unstable governments"

Marc Levy at Columbia University in New York, who is working with the ICG, is one of the few researchers who have been able to support these speculations with data. In a forthcoming paper, he and colleagues combine databases on civil wars and water availability to show that when rainfall is significantly below normal, the risk of a low-level conflict escalating to a full-scale civil war approximately doubles in the following year.

Parts of Nepal that witnessed fighting during the 2002 Maoist insurgency, for example, had suffered worse droughts in preceding years than regions that were conflict-free. Although Levy is not sure why the link should exist in this case, studies of other conflicts suggest explanations. Drought can cause food shortages, generating anger against governments, for example. "Semi-retired" armed groups may return to conflict in these situtations. ...

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