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INSIDE SIPA
PhD Students Connect Climate Change and Civil War By Alex Burnett
El Niño can help spark civil war, according to
research by SIPA and The Earth Institute’s
PhD program in sustainable development.
Kyle Meng, a PhD candidate in the
program, and Solomon Hsiang, a 2011 graduate,
coauthored the study in the journal Nature,
detailing their research linking the climate cycle to
increases in warfare. Mark Cane, a climate scientist
at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory, was the third coauthor.
The study found that the arrival of El Niño,
which every three to seven years boosts temperatures
and cuts rainfall, doubles the risk of civil
wars across 90 tropical nations. It says El Niño
may have played a role in a fifth of all worldwide
conflicts during the past 50 years.
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This is the first study of its kind, linking global
weather observations and documented violence,
to point to climate as a possible cause of future
destabilization. The study does not blame specific
conflicts on El Niño nor address long-term climate
change. But it does point to how a warming
climate could contribute to existing conflicts in
places like Somalia.
“The most important thing is that this looks at
modern times, and it’s done on a global scale,”
says Hsiang.
“We can speculate that a long-ago Egyptian
dynasty was overthrown during a drought,” he
continues. “That’s a specific time and place,
which may be very different from today, so people
might say, ‘OK, we’re immune to that now.’ This
SIPA Alumnae Direct New Global Centers
Columbia University launched two new
Global Centers in fall 2011, each directed
by a SIPA alumna: Karen Poniachik (MIA
’90) in Santiago, Chile, and Ipek Cem-
Taha (MIA ’93, BUS ’93) in Istanbul, Turkey.
In September, Poniachik joined University
President Lee C. Bollinger, Andronico Luksic, vice
chairman of Banco de Chile, and Kenneth Prewitt,
vice president of Columbia Global Centers, at a
signing ceremony hosted by SIPA dean John H.
Coatsworth. Her new role, directing the University’s
first center in Latin America, adds to an
impressive career in government and business.
After graduating from SIPA, Poniachik served
as director of business and financial programs
at the Council of the Americas in New York from
1995 to 2000. She moved to Chile to serve as
executive vice president of the Foreign Investment
Committee (2000–2006), minister of energy
(2006–2007), and minister of mining (2006–
2008). Her last role with the Chilean government
was as special envoy in charge of negotiating
Chile’s ascension to the OECD, achieved in January
2010.
The University launched its sixth Global Center
in Istanbul in early November with a series of
events and scholarly panels attended by President
Bollinger, Dean Coatsworth, newly appointed
interim director Ipek Cem-Taha, several Columbia
faculty and deans, and scholars from the region.
Cem-Taha is a Turkish businesswoman, journalist,
and leading member of several communitybased
and international organizations. From 2005
to 2011, she produced and hosted the program
“Global Leaders” in association with NTV, Turkey’s
leading news channel. She has also served as a
newspaper columnist, commenting on international
trends, politics, and economics. Cem-Taha
is also a co-founder and director of Melak Investments,
which provides strategic advice to funds
and companies looking to invest in Turkey. Previously,
she was a co-founder and managing partner
of Netwise/IKC Communications, an Internet
services company.
study shows a systematic pattern of global climate
affecting conflict, and it shows it right now.”
The PhD in Sustainable Development combines
elements of a traditional graduate education in
social science, particularly economics, with a
significant component of training in the natural
sciences. Students in SIPA’s Sustainable Development
PhD program come from a wide variety of
backgrounds and are working on a diverse set
of research topics, including poverty and water
resources, green building, climate uncertainty and
policy, disaster risk reduction, low-resources health
systems, and sustainable design. The program’s
graduates are uniquely situated to undertake serious
research and policy assessments with the goal
of sustainable development.
Ipek Cem-Taha with President Bollinger at the launch
of the Global Center in Istanbul.