The nexus among climate change, conflict and supply chains: A systematic literature review from 1990 to 2023

Despite the growth in the literature on the climate-conflict nexus since the 1990s, globalization of climate-exacerbated conflict through trade has received little attention until recently. This paper provides a meta-study on the share, trends and characteristics in the literature linking the variables of climate change, global trade and political instability/conflict. Through a systematic literature review, this study shows that (a) the literature on the climate-conflict-supply chains nexus is relatively scarce and scattered across disciplines, (b) there is a significant bias in favour of studying food supply chains, (c) there is an overwhelming focus on risk studies, with little attention on cooperation, management or adaptation, and (d) most studies do not focus on the instability/conflict effects of climate-related shocks, but on their economic consequences. An in-depth analysis of the 20 most cited papers of the sample confirms the biases found in the keywords and abstracts analysis, and shows that (a) links among the 3 topics are present in the literature, but in a scattered manner, and (b) there is a fertile ground for new research correlating climate-related shocks to instability/conflict, as well as for exploring the cooperation and adaptation measures of the world-trade regime to climate change.