Penrith audience hears about the role of climate change in conflict
Local sustainability group Penrith Action for Community Transition (PACT) welcomed Joe Human for their first event of 2026, to talk about ‘Climate Change and Conflict – when climate change makes people fight’. This informative but deeply disturbing narrative explained how the effects of climate change can be factors in armed conflict.
Joe opened his talk with an extract from the Ecological Threat Report of 2024, by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) which asserts that the higher the ecological threat facing a country or area, the more likely it is to have active armed conflict. He then illustrated this with reference to several areas affected by both armed conflict and climate change.
The first case was the Sahel region, which borders the southern Sahara Desert, from Senegal in the west to Eritrea in the east, including countries such as Burkina Faso and Sudan, renowned for violent conflict. The Sahel has been dubbed ‘The Coup Belt’, as many of the countries have endured multiple coups since their independence in the 1950s and 60s. Joe explained that the majority of the Sahel’s population are semi-nomadic, migrating with their livestock between the wetter region in the south and the drier north. Many of these traditional migratory routes are now under threat because they cross national borders and the effects of climate change are forcing nomads to change their routes or even stop migrating entirely. Droughts are increasing in intensity, and storms are becoming more frequent causing soil degradation and increased crop failure.
The combination of poor crops and high population growth in the region results in extreme hardship, hunger and heightened competition for resources which predisposes people to fight. In the context of endemic poverty, fragile governance and arms trafficking, armed conflict can arise very quickly. Disaffected youths from nomadic communities feel abandoned by the government and are easily recruited by militant groups. The IEP recognises the Sahel as the ‘global epicentre of terrorism’ in their Global Terrorism Index 2025, with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in the top five countries most impacted by terrorism. Joe observed that Mali’s capital was blockaded by jihadists in October 2025, and the conflict has still not been resolved.
Joe’s next case was in Central America, where gang violence is exacerbated by the destruction and displacement of people caused by increasingly severe cyclones. Overall, the climate of the region is becoming hotter, drier and more hostile to agriculture, so more people are suffering poverty and migrating to cities, which are becoming overcrowded. Joe described the Barrio 18 gang, which was started by people of Mexican descent in California, but it spread to Central America as imprisoned members were deported. Barrio 18 is now thought to have up to 30,000 members in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. As in the Sahel, vulnerable youths are recruited from struggling urban settlements. Gangs provide ‘security’ and social order when governments fail to provide support after natural disasters. Joe illustrated how the interaction of climate-stressors with pre-existing social vulnerabilities, amplifies conflict in unstable regions.
Joe wrapped up his talk with some graphs that show the correlation between ecological threat and conflict. He also noted that most countries that are threatened with catastrophic climate change and a low resistance to conflict are impoverished countries in the global South, that suffer from the climate crisis caused primarily by the rich global North.
PACT would like to thank Joe Human for presenting this challenging subject in a really accessible way.