Colombia’s decades-long conflict culminated in the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which included aims to achieve peace through rural reform, reintegration of former combatants, addressing illicit crop cultivation, and ensuring land restitution and voluntary return for displaced individuals.
However, the combination of non-state armed groups (NSAGs), entrenched violence, social inequality and environmental challenges continues to hinder progress, particularly in rural areas. Since 2022, the current government has pursued a policy of ‘Total Peace’, alongside implementing the peace agreement. This includes peace talks with armed groups and addressing structural violence, racial discrimination, gender inequality, social inequalities and environmental concerns. This fact sheet focuses on how climate-related peace and security risks interact with specific provisions of the peace agreement, and provides an update on the situation since 2022.
- Rural reforms have progressed slowly, while environmental degradation and climate change impacts continue to undermine livelihood security and heighten vulnerabilities in rural areas.
- Conflict and climate-related hazards contribute to internal displacement, disproportionately affecting marginalized Afro Colombians, Indigenous Peoples, and women and girls. People living in informal settlements are particularly vulnerable to landslides, floods and other natural hazards.
- Environmental degradation is closely linked to armed groups’ tactics. In areas under NSAG control, appropriation of land, rivers and other resources accentuates vulnerabilities by limiting natural resource access and availability, which affects livelihood security.
- The protracted conflict has displaced millions and led to widespread land dispossession, with elites and armed groups seizing control of land, often aided by state officials. This dispossession is also tied to the expansion of agro-industrial and mining projects, where vested interests from elites and armed groups hinder land restitution efforts.
To fully implement the peace agreement, the Colombian government and its partners must strengthen natural resource governance in areas with limited state presence and high resource exploitation. Natural resource governance can be used to facilitate inclusive governance, intercommunal trust building and cooperation. Leveraging the peace agreement’s provisions on rural reform, crop substitution, and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) can advance integrated climate action and peacebuilding efforts.
RECOMMENDED ACTIONS
▶ The United Nations Security Council should task the UN Verification Mission in Colombia with conducting an assessment of how climate-related security risks and environmental degradation affect Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement, particularly the full implementation of comprehensive rural reforms. The assessment should include recommendations for the Colombian government and other relevant partners.
▶ Relevant UN bodies, such as the International Organization for Migration, and other international partners should continue to support the Colombian government in strengthening its capacity to address displacement and confinement. Special attention should be paid to strengthening resilience to climate shocks to prevent them from escalating into disasters, addressing inequality, and fostering better service delivery and social cohesion in host communities.
▶ The Colombian government should fulfil its commitment to increased protection for environmental defenders, as outlined in both the 2016 peace agreement and the 2018 Escazú Agreement (adopted into Colombian law in 2024). By implementing these agreements, the government can improve environmental protection and address the grievances tied to land dispossession, resource use and illegal economies that often fuel conflict.
▶ The Colombian government, together with its international and local partners, should ensure that development projects aimed at reducing marginalization and inequality and improving governance are climate-informed and conflict-sensitive, in order to avoid creating new vulnerabilities. Integrating climate, peace and security considerations into Colombia’s nationally determined contribution and national adaptation plan could lead to development that is more peace-positive and climate sensitive.
This is an extract from a factsheet published by NUPI and SIPRI published in October 2024. The full factsheet can be accessed here.
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