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Sampling bias in climate–conflict research

Nature Climate Change volume 8, pages 200–203 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Critics have argued that the evidence of an association between climate change and conflict is flawed because the research relies on a dependent variable sampling strategy1,2,3,4. Similarly, it has been hypothesized that convenience of access biases the sample of cases studied (the ‘streetlight effect’5). This also gives rise to claims that the climate–conflict literature stigmatizes some places as being more ‘naturally’ violent6,7,8. Yet there has been no proof of such sampling patterns. Here we test whether climate–conflict research is based on such a biased sample through a systematic review of the literature. We demonstrate that research on climate change and violent conflict suffers from a streetlight effect. Further, studies which focus on a small number of cases in particular are strongly informed by cases where there has been conflict, do not sample on the independent variables (climate impact or risk), and hence tend to find some association between these two variables. These biases mean that research on climate change and conflict primarily focuses on a few accessible regions, overstates the links between both phenomena and cannot explain peaceful outcomes from climate change. This could result in maladaptive responses in those places that are stigmatized as being inherently more prone to climate-induced violence.

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Fig. 1: Frequency of mentions of continents in the climate–conflict literature per year.
Fig. 2: Changes in the frequency of mentions in the climate–conflict literature depending on country characteristics.

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Acknowledgements

This research was completed with support from the Australian–American Fulbright Commission, the German Research Foundation (DFG) project ID80/2-1 and the Australian Research Council project FT120100208.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, Victoria, Australia

    Courtland Adams, Tobias Ide & Jon Barnett

  2. Georg Eckert Institute, Braunschweig, Germany

    Tobias Ide

  3. Department of Political and Social Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Adrien Detges

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  1. Courtland Adams
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  2. Tobias Ide
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Contributions

C.A., T.I., J.B. and A.D. designed the research, analysed the results and wrote the paper. C.A. performed the systematic literature review. A.D. and T.I. conducted the statistical analysis.

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Correspondence to Tobias Ide.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1–3 and Supplementary Datasets 1–2

Supplementary Dataset 3

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Adams, C., Ide, T., Barnett, J. et al. Sampling bias in climate–conflict research. Nature Clim Change 8, 200–203 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0068-2

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