Introduction to Climate Change, Violence, and Sustainable Development in the Anthropocene

This volume features contributions that address climate change-induced or the related peacePeace, securitySecurity, conflict, and developmentDevelopment challenges in sub-SaharanSub-Saharan Africa. Given that climate change constitutes one of the threatsThreats to peace and securityPeace and security, we argue that peace and securityPeace and security are no longer grounded in traditional peacebuildingPeacebuilding theories that have evolved from liberal to democratic peaceDemocratic peace theories—rather, they have become critical questions and areas of peacePeace studies and environmental studies, under the umbrella of peace ecologyPeace ecology—because the need for peacePeace, even if it may be delayed, arises when conflicts have ensued. Thus, our arguments in producing this volume were to underscore the effects of peace ecologyPeace ecology—which is positioned at the intersection of peacePeace studies and environmental studies, as conceptualised by Kyrou (Int J Peace Stud 73–92, 2007). Our aim was also to explore the theoretical contribution of peace ecologyPeace ecology in understanding and bridging environmental peaceEnvironmental peace and conventional peacePeace; integrating environmental questions, and the factors that trigger socio-political and environmental conflictsEnvironmental conflicts and violenceViolence. We also aimed to raise an awareness of the contributions of the “peace ecologyPeace ecology paradigm” in ensuring an understanding of violence, climate change and sustainable development issues, and their implications for global peace and securityPeace and security. Last, we designed this volume in such a way that it would generate a pluridisciplinary body of knowledge that draws from pluralistic methodological approaches that the various contributors in this volume have explored and employed—from their diverse fields of studies and expertise. The authors of some chapters in this volume discuss various mechanisms that are susceptible of reducing the Earth systemsEarth systems’ vulnerabiliy to mitigate Anthropogenic climate changeAnthropogenic climate change and global warmingGlobal warming, and their effects on humanityHumanity, the ecosystemEcosystems and biodiversity, and provide various models of peacebuildingPeacebuilding to avert the ongoing socio-political violenceViolence in sub-SaharanSub-Saharan Africa, and in the Ukraine. Thus, we contend that the planetary boundariesPlanetary boundaries frameworkFramework remains the realistic framework within which human and sustainable developmentSustainable development can be pursued and attained.