Investigating the Relation Between Climate Change and Conflict in Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, Tajikistan

Abstract

Climate change poses risks to the basic human needs, rights, and core values of individuals and communities. Tajikistan, where many livelihoods depend on land and environment is classified by the World Bank from the “Commonwealth of Independent States” countries as the most vulnerable to climate change and therefore faces challenges in capacity and adaptation to climate change. This work explores the relation of climate change-induced natural disasters and conflict in Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, Tajikistan. (GBAO) and investigates the role of gender, occupation, age and its effect on the perspective toward the link between climate change and conflict. A survey was conducted with the local population of GBAO in 50 villages and 200 people were interviewed. To understand if there is a link between climate and conflict in GBAO the question of whether the residents perceive any relation between these two factors was examined and the results demonstrated that only 2 percent of the respondents believe that conflicts can occur due to climate-induced natural disasters. The rest of the interviewees replied that such conflicts did not happen in the past and they perceive nor current nor future relation between them. This result was consistent across genders, age groups, and professional occupations.