Research Projects

POLIMPACT seeks to develop alternative qualitative and quantitative scenarios for governance, conflict, and economic development over the 21st century and explore implications for climate change impacts.

Enabling Politically Sensitive Climate Change Impact Assessments for the 21st Century (POLIMPACT)

Societies at risk is a multi-disciplinary research program at Uppsala University that brings together scholars from public health research, economics, political science, peace and conflict research, and natural disaster science to study the impacts of armed conflict in much more detail and comprehensiveness than before.

The programme takes a risk-analysis perspective, seeing the expected impact as a function of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. It considers effects at both the macro and micro level, on economies, health, water security, political institutions, human rights, forced migration, and gender equality; and analyses how the various impacts and vulnerabilities identified work to reinforce each other.

In order to assist actors that seek to reduce the impact of armed conflict on human development, the programme will also produce evidence-based policy recommendations for anticipatory action.

Societies at Risk

Mistra Geopolitics is a research programme that examines the dynamics of geopolitics, human security and environmental change. The results will be of special relevance for Sweden, Swedish actors and policymakers on the European level.

Mistra Geopolitics

Climate change is increasingly regarded as humanity’s greatest collective challenge, which threatens to permanently alter the foundations of societies across the world. Mitigating global warming requires comprehensive measures, including a massive reduction of fossil fuel use. Countries as diverse as France, Yemen and Nigeria have experienced massive protests following rising fuel prices. These events illustrate that the economic transformation required to meet climate goals could have significant social consequences, including the potential for social unrest and conflict, that have received little academic attention. Recognising the significance of fossil fuels for modern economies and as a target of climate change mitigation policies, this project (1) assesses the extent to which social unrest is driven by changes in fossil fuel prices; (2) assesses the potential of such fuel protests to escalate to wider social conflicts, including armed conflict; and (3) studies why fuel protests end in different ways: governments backing down, protesters giving up, or government and protesters reaching accommodation. To these ends, the project combines statistical studies on fuel prices, government subsidies and social unrest and a comparative cases study on protest outcomes.

Petroleum, prices and protests: The impact of climate change mitigation on social unrest