A few years ago, the link between climate change and conflict was a niche policy area. It has now begun to dominate UN climate summits. That recognition is about to be elevated a step higher as the Africa Climate Summit prepares to pass the Common African Position: a key policy document on climate, peace, and security.

African diplomats like Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s special climate envoy, hope the summit – to be held September 8-10 in Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa – will be a “game changer” that will “spark a seismic shift for a unified, continent-wide climate pact to replace isolated national plans”.

Bringing a unified approach to the growing challenge of climate impacts and conflict is a key aim of the eponymous Common African Position, according to Olayinka Ajala, who helped author the first draft of the declaration. The New Humanitarian spoke to Ajala, a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at Leeds Beckett University, in early August, ahead of the Summit.

Ajala was keen to stress that he was only involved in the earliest version of the declaration, which has since gone through numerous rounds of diplomatic revisions and approvals.

But Ajala’s perspectives provide insight into the core aims of the declaration, which could be the biggest moment for the climate-conflict policy agenda this year, given that hosts Brazil decided not to include a dedicated day for it at the COP30 summit in November.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The New Humanitarian: What is the African Common Position on Climate, Peace and Security?

Olayinka Ajala: Common African Positions (CAP) are policy documents on issues identified by the African Union as needing a continental-wide approach. It’s a very strong policy document, because every country within the African Union is represented at one stage or the other during the process. They exist for many issues, including food security, migration and displacement and technology.

The common position on Climate Change, Peace and Security came about because the African Union realised that we have policy documents for conflict, climate change, water resources and so on but nothing that brings together these issues.

The Common African Position was designed to improve understanding of climate change as not just a threat multiplier, but to show there is a direct causative relationship between climate change and conflict.

The CAP’s main aim is to bring together policies to prevent and manage climate-related insecurity and to sustain peace on the continent. The draft contained different thematic areas, including governance and fragility, resource management, the role of non-state actors and climate finance. There are policy frameworks on each of those thematic areas.

Another key aim is to bring out and prove that climate change is increasing insecurity on the continent. The Common African Position was designed to improve understanding of climate change as not just a threat multiplier, but to show there is a direct causative relationship between climate change and conflict – and how this could be addressed through a continental, wide policy framework.

The New Humanitarian: Why is this issue so important?

Ajala: Because for a very long time, climate change was seen as a threat multiplier aggravating existing hostilities. But the key aspect of the CAP is to prove that climate change has significantly contributed to an increase in conflict and changed the dynamics of conflict. We need to address that holistically.

Climate and conflict works out differently in different countries. For instance, the dynamics of farmer-pastoralist conflict in Nigeria is different from that in Senegal, it’s different from eastern Africa.

Ten to 15 years ago farmers and pastoralists lived – mostly – in symbiotic relationships, whereby they were able to cohabitate and work together in some ways. But in the last decade, we’ve seen an increase across the continent in conflicts, some not violent, many very violent in nature.

The New Humanitarian: How are climate impacts creating new conflict dynamics?

Ajala: There have been increases in resource based conflicts, like over water.

Often, when you look at so many countries, these conflicts arise between different ethnic groups or different communities. So for a long time, we’ve identified it as ethnic conflict.

But when we then dig deeper and look at the dynamics of this conflict, we then see how climate impacts are creating tension. A big example is changing rainfall patterns – its intensity and timing. It’s led farmers to change when they plant and harvest their crops.

While pastoralists like Fulanis and Tuaregs have established movement patterns over decades, farming seasons are now different. So it creates issues: If a pastoralist’s animals destroy some crops, and then the farmers react by killing the animals, conflict erupts. There’s confusion, but what they don’t understand is that the farming timetable has changed because of climate change. This is a direct example of how a climate impact is driving conflict.

But that doesn’t get attributed to climate change. Farmers and pastoralists just think, “Why are they being more hostile”. There are other underlying dynamics that also aggravate this issue – not least increasing populations’ food demands, meaning previously sufficient grazing areas are now not big enough.

The New Humanitarian: Does climate just affect farmer-herder conflicts or is it broader?

Ajala: It’s broader. So there are so many other issues. The reason why I’ve emphasised farmer-herder conflicts is because it’s the one that comes across many of the countries that we’ve seen.

In the Sahel, drought has displaced many farmers, and when they move to other communities, it increases competition and sometimes results in conflict. Lake Chad used to support 30 million people in the region, but it shrunk significantly in the past 30-40 years, and a lot of people are no longer supported. So many of them are now having to look for alternative forms of livelihood.

And this is where the non-state actors then come in: They can offer alternative livelihoods or food. People, as a means of survival, are joining armed groups, engaging in trafficking, engaging in kidnapping, engaging in conflict and violence against the state.

The New Humanitarian: What impacts do you hope the common position document will have?

Ajala: It will be a key negotiating document for the AU at COPs (UN climate summits), where officials can have a unified policy framework that they can present to negotiate on issues relating to climate change and security in Africa. It should improve Africa’s diplomatic strength, because it’s the voice of all the countries on the continent.

Outside the COPs, it’s also a solid core document that can link activities being done across nation states, regional organisations, and local communities. Having this umbrella-type policy document would alone have a significant impact, because individual states can then draw upon it to have their own localised policies in their own country, which also fits into addressing the issues at the regional level and continental level. This might be a new timetable for pastoralist movements to try to restore the previously entrenched symbiotic relationship with groups.

The New Humanitarian: Did the aid cuts from the US and other major donors affect the draft?

Ajala: No, not specifically, there is no particular focus on a particular funding scheme or mechanism or country or organisation.

Common African Positions aren’t normally concerned with this because we understand that things change from time to time, and this is a document that is going to guide the African Union and Africa for the next decade or more. So we can’t base that on particular changes or political issues, temporary political issues around the world, because things change all the time.

• A Tell Media report