Gathering Storm: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Climate Change and Terrorism

Climate change is a potential major driver of future terrorism. It is already recognised by many (if not most) nations as a strategic security threat, though the potential role it can play in igniting, facilitating, or exacerbating terrorist conflict has been relatively unexplored. There are, however, growing signs that climate change—either through direct or indirect impacts—should be considered as a significant macro-level driver of terrorism. It is certainly well established that the causes of terrorism can involve both large-scale geo-political processes and at the same time much more low-key individual level personal factors. Much of the traditional debate around the “root causes” of terrorism has concen-trated heavily on macro-level drivers with a particular focus on factors tied to economic, political and historical forces. 1 The relative importance of each factor can vary enormously depending on the perspective taken not only in research terms but also in terms of potential policy interventions. It is critical to acknowledge, however, that not all causes will be present in every case, and those that are present do not always have the same degree of impact. A cause of vital importance in one terrorist conflict might play no detectable role in others. Given understand the and Attempts to do so have to be sophisticated in how “causes” are framed. can work at different levels and important to the trouble to distinguish between these. Similarly, we how then on the data used and the reached. is on many key issues and care is needed in selecting relevant and be to not we the search to comprehend the causes of terrorism. The critical in 8. Two hundred and seventy-six incidents were recorded in the GTD connected to environmentally motivated terrorism. Fifteen additional incidents connected to Theodore Kaczynski bring the total to 291. The GTD incidents were identified through the search term “environmentalist” as well as the following list of specific perpetrator group names: