According to a study led by the University of California at Berkeley (United States), climate change could increase the probability of civil war in Sub-Saharan Africa . In their study, the researchers first combined historical data on civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa with rainfall and temperature records from across the continent. They found that between 1980 and 2002, civil wars were more common in temperate years and that a 1 degree Celsius rise in annual temperatures increased the incidence of conflict across the continent by 50 percent.
Consistent with this historical relationship between temperatures and conflict , the researchers used projections of changes in temperatures and rainfall in the future to quantify the likelihood of African civil war. In 20 of these climate model projections, the researchers found that the incidence of civil war in Africa would increase by 55 percent by 2030, leading to an additional 390,000 combat deaths in future wars as deadly as recent ones.
