Topic guide: conflict, climate and environment

This topic guide supports the Department for International Development (DFID) advisers in the conflict, security and justice cadres as well as the humanitarian, climate and environment cadres in gaining a greater understanding of the importance and complexity of the links between conflict, climate and environment. The topic guide focuses on violent conflict at the sub-national, national and trans-boundary level in relation to natural resources, climate variability, climate change and environmental change. The guide concentrates on longer-term development objectives to build resilience, support adaptation, create peace and address underlying causes of vulnerability.

The issues dealt with in this guide (conflict, climate and environment) are central to the following: the Approach Paper Defining Disaster Resilience (DFID, 2011); the report Saving Lives, Preventing Suffering and Building Resilience (DFID, 2012); DFID’s Future Fit ambition to integrate climate change across its portfolio; and cross-Whitehall initiatives related to conflict, including the Building Stability Overseas Strategy (BSOS) (DFID et al., 2011) and National Security Council.