1. Introduction

Scepticism related to climate change has given way in the past few years as evidence of the impact of climate change has increased. There are fears that adverse environmental transformations, including the reduction in the availability or quality of natural resources such as water and land, can lead to conflicts. The human security of communities whose livelihoods depend heavily on these resources is likely to be destabilized. Farmers and herders of West Africa fall into this category. Conflicts regularly occur between these groups and the projected impacts of climate change, which include more irregular rainfall and hence less access to freshwater resources, could fuel the violence further. However, social, economic and political factors can mitigate the environmental impacts of climate change and their potential for causing conflict. Research into reducing climate-change-related conflict through political levers, the focus of this study, is not yet very profuse. This introductory chapter sets out the objectives of this study, namely, the identification of political factors that could contribute to conflict reduction in the climate-change-impacted settings of West Africa. The approach adopted involves defining a theoretical model to support the argument and then testing hypotheses on the potential of political factors for conflict reduction.