Green IR Theory and Domestic Wars: Revisiting Environmental Conflicts in Africa

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue IX, September 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

Green IR Theory and Domestic Wars: Revisiting Environmental Conflicts in Africa

Michael J. Denis
Centre for Conflict and Gender Studies, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Executive Summary: – Recent outbreak of environmental conflicts in African countries is a threat to peaceful human co-existence. This is opposed to the rather decline in warfare on the international arena. This work therefore explored other possible means of tackling domestic conflicts by employing the Green International Relations (IR) theory in explaining the cause(s) and possible solutions to environmental conflicts in Africa. The methodology used in this study is mainly the analysis of secondary data from journals, literatures, documentaries, while also examining a couple of case studies as an empirical basis. The findings in this study revealed that environmental change is unlikely to be a an independent cause of domestic wars that are related to environmental scarcity in Africa, hence, sought relevance of other factors like economy and politics. It recommended that in order to avoid conflicts arising from environmental change, the state and non-state actors must consider the health of the ecosystem as paramount, adopt legal approaches to protecting the environment, take environmental consciousness as a moral duty, work for improved economy and a make the society relatively prosperous, and most importantly should opt for non-violent alternatives in the face of resource scarcity.

Keywords: Conflicts, Environment, International Relations, Domestic Wars, Africa, Climate Change

I. INTRODUCTION

Albeit, environmental change is a global issue, its effects are felt locally by individual nations as they often manifest in sea level rise, drought, severe weather, and other consequences (Daly and May, 2019). Some violent conflicts in Africa have also been seen as part of the consequences of climate change.
Although Africa has been greatly affected by both climate change and conflict, there have been much controversy and perhaps only a small number of rigorous and systematic academic studies on the relationship between these phenomena. Conversely, the impacts of climate change are increasingly perceived as global security risks, which may have great implications for the dynamics of violent conflict. The immediate impacts of climate change include decreased regional agricultural production due to land degradation and air pollution, increased displacement of people, decreased economic productivity, disruption of institutions(Haug and Ellingson, 1998), low availability of food and fresh water, and general deterioration of livelihood, et cetera. But what is the likelihood of these factors causing violent conflict?

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