ABSTRACT
The violence in the Sudanese province of Darfur is the largest and latest in a series of sporadic conflicts going back to the
1980s, originating in tribal competition over access to grazing
land and water.1 Fighting broke out in February 2003 when a new rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army, launched attacks
on local police stations. By 2007 over two million people had
been displaced, many fleeing across the border to Chad, and
the number of killed and wounded has been estimated by the
United Nations at somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000.2 In June of that year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ignited
a widespread debate when he declared that human-induced
climate change was an important contributing factor to the
Darfur conflict3 – a point previously argued by a number of
commentators, including former Vice President Gore in An Inconvenient Truth in 2006.4 On the eve of the UN Security Council debate on climate change and security in April 2007, the UK’s
Special Representative for Climate Change John Ashton said
‘the security implications of climate changes are bigger than we
thought even two or three years ago. Their effects can already
be seen in Darfur.’5 At the end of 2008, the number of internally
displaced persons had reached 2.7m, and over 250,000 had
fled to neighbouring countries.6 Fighting continued, despite
ongoing peace talks and the presence of a 19,000-strong United
Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission. Bad govern-
ance was undoubtedly a particularly important contributor to
the conflict and to the failure of peace efforts. It also hindered
international humanitarian relief operations. However, with
regard to its onset and severity, the fighting in Darfur can accu-
rately be labelled the first modern climate-change conflict.
