Climate change is increasingly recognized not merely as an environmental crisis but as a threat multiplier, worsening political and economic tensions worldwide. Two factors — water scarcity and mass migration — are poised to completely reshape global conflict dynamics.
Without coordinated global action, these pressures may induce a vicious circle of interlocking issues: destabilization of livelihoods, unprecedented waves of civil unrest and political violence, mass migration and surging border conflicts.
The world is interconnected. A shift in one location will impact another. Fresh water is a resource we all need to survive, and as it dwindles, conflicts can flare. At the same time, rising sea levels and soaring temperatures will make many cities and huge swathes of land uninhabitable. Put together, these human-induced changes will lead to the widespread movement of people into countries that are hell-bent on protecting their resources.
In response, governments will likely deploy ever-more sophisticated military technology to protect their own citizens, becoming more insular in the process. Once capitalism is at risk of crumbling, social divides increase, and nations, corporations, or even ultra-wealthy individuals may begin to take matters into their own hands — addressing climate change in a way that benefits them, potentially at the expense of others.
Water scarcity
Civilizations first emerged along fertile downstream river valleys — the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates and Indus. Nowadays, upstream states increasingly control the water that downstream populations rely upon — and in a warming world, that could fuel explosive conflicts.
Consider Iraq: The once-rich agricultural areas near Basra have become increasingly barren due to upstream Turkish dams and accelerating climate change. This scarcity has heightened tensions between Iraq’s diverse regions, including the upstream Kurdistan Regional Government (which has proposed adding 245 dams to the governorate), central Baghdad, and the downstream southern populations near Basra.
Similar conflicts are brewing in the Nile Basin, where Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam has heightened Egypt’s anxieties over future water security. While Egypt’s recent history of internal unrest has many roots, projected water shortages linked to the dam and increasingly erratic rainfall have amplified fears about food insecurity, unemployment and migration, all of which could compound domestic instability.
As global warming accelerates, it’s possible that downstream states may clandestinely carry out or finance acts of ecoterrorism against their upstream neighbors, for instance by destroying dams, as Russia did in Ukraine.
Closer to home, recent tensions between the United States and Mexico over water rights have spilled over into economic policy. President Donald Trump recently threatened sanctions and tariffs against Mexico over disputes related to water treaties involving the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers, which have had dwindling flow in recent years thanks to climate change.
In 2020, conflict began when Mexican government forces sought to release the water in La Boquilla dam in Chihuahua, Mexico, downstream to the United States. They clashed violently with local farmers whose farms would be receiving less water.
Mass migration overwhelming borders
As hostilities over water grow, climate-driven migration will also fan the flames of conflict in and between countries. After climate-affected people have exhausted all other options for adapting in place, they may resort first to internal migration and then south-to-north mass migrations that may overwhelm national borders.
Sea-level rise threatens coastal cities worldwide — including Miami, Venice, Lagos, Jakarta and Alexandria — potentially displacing millions of people and intensifying competition over dwindling livable land and resources.
As migration pressures mount, wealthier nations may increasingly militarize their frontiers rather than let in these climate refugees. They are already doing so.
Of course, history reveals the limitations of this approach. Rome’s sophisticated border fortifications eventually failed as climate change fueled the in-migration of rival groups like the Huns and Goths. To avoid this fate, modern states are going beyond simply building physical barriers; they are also deploying drones, artificial intelligence surveillance and even autonomous defense systems to keep refugees out.
Border hardening may go hand-in-hand with policy shifts that mean governments only protect the rights of those who can pay. This shift is already underway. The recent proposal for restructuring the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) into the US International Humanitarian Agency explicitly prioritizes American “taxpayers” and companies rather than its citizens, reflecting a broader global trend toward commodifying citizenship.
This trend will worsen inequality, insulating the wealthy from climate change while the poorest suffer.
A hard road ahead
Effectively addressing these challenges requires strong democratic governance. Democracies that prioritize distributing resources equitably and adapting to climate change are more resilient. Unfortunately, many countries today are backsliding, becoming less democratic and even rolling back climate policies.
The potential collapse of insurance markets due to climate impacts, highlighted recently by Allianz, vividly illustrates what will happen if governments fail to adequately respond to climate change. Günther Thallinger, a member of the insurance giant’s board, warned that pretty soon the company won’t be able to cover climate risks — an impact that will ricochet through financial services. “The financial sector as we know it ceases to function,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post. “And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.”
When climate risks make large segments of global assets uninsurable — think entire districts or even cities vulnerable to flooding or wildfire — the foundations of capitalism wobble. Without significant political intervention, these pressures will dramatically widen social divides, fueling migration or even revolutionary movements.
The above scenarios could collectively heighten the risk of an often overlooked possibility: one where a single nation or group of nations unilaterally decides to deploy a stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) — a type of geoengineering that, theoretically, reduces the effects of climate change by lowering overall solar radiation entering the atmosphere. However, the effects of such geoengineering strategies on rainfall patterns may inadvertently alter downwind rainfall patterns, or even cause “termination shocks” to temperature when ceased.
Middle-income “buffer zone” countries, like Mexico or Turkey, that may be overwhelmed by a surge of migration, could view an SAI as a way of reducing migration pressure. So, too, might democratic countries whose governments want to take action on climate change but can’t find a global policy consensus. Craig Martin, co-director of the International and Comparative Law Center at the Washburn University School of Law, and Scott Moore, a University of Pennsylvania political scientist, have described the SAI scenario as a conceivable cause for war, possibly declared by autocratic or oligarchic nations that are negatively affected, or that are looking for excuses to seize resources or territories.
To prevent this spiraling scenario of violence, economic disruption and political breakdown, we need urgent, proactive international cooperation. In addition to dramatic climate change prevention efforts, we must include legally binding resource-sharing treaties, humane migration frameworks and collaborative adaptation efforts, where richer nations help poorer ones.
Climate change’s profound reshaping of conflict dynamics is already underway. The question facing humanity now is not whether we will confront these pressures, but how we will choose to do so: through cooperation and proactive governance or through escalating militarization, inequity and instability. Our collective response today will define the peace and stability of tomorrow’s world.
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