Climate is linked to conflict, and exacerbates root causes of fragility, conflict and human mobility. Although this is widely recognized in the science-policy landscape, there is a lack of solid, localized and policy-relevant evidence on how exactly climate security risks can arise in different geographical contexts.

The Climate Security Observatory (CSO) aims to fill this gap.

The CSO is an online platform for stakeholder decision-making that provides access to a range of global climate and security-related analyses. The CSO uses science on land, water and food systems to assess the role of climate in exacerbating root causes of human insecurities. The aim is to reduce or avoid the risk of climate-driven insecurity by providing accessible and actionable knowledge at multiple scales. In the long term, this should contribute to the creation and maintenance of a climate-resilient peace.

The CSO provides answers to four guiding questions to achieve its goal:

• Where are the most vulnerable areas to climate-related insecurities and risks
• Who are the groups vulnerable to climate and security risks that should be targeted?
• How does climate exacerbate the causes of conflict?
• What needs to be done to break the vicious cycle between climate and conflict?

The current Beta version of the CSO can be accessed here.