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The impacts of climate change and variability will likely be experienced in different and uneven ways depending on the different extents to which societies – and the communities within them – are exposed, vulnerable, or possess the adaptive capacity to mitigate said impacts. Certain countries, such as those located near the equator or the poles, are exposed to a rapidly changing climate to a greater degree than other countries. Furthermore, countries whose economies are highly dependent on climate-sensitive resources and sectors and that face challenges in diversifying their economic base are inherently more vulnerable to climate-induced perturbations (Feitelson & Tubi, 2017). These forms of exposure can be compounded by persistent or periodically high levels of fragility – defined by the World Bank (2011) as periods when states or institutions lack the capacity, accountability, or legitimacy to mediate relations between citizen groups and between citizens and the state – which can in turn undermine the extent to which societies as a whole and certain groups within them possess the adaptive capacity to manage, absorb or mitigate climate risks. Communities that are highly dependent on climate-vulnerable livelihoods and sectors, face socio-economic and political marginalisation (therefore possessing little scope or capacity for diversification), or that are located in unstable and conflict-prone environments are far more likely to experience tangibly destabilising climatic impacts than others. As a consequence of the uneven landscape upon which climate impacts play out, climate change is therefore likely to set in motion or accelerate any number of different existing processes of change simultaneously - yet in qualitatively different ways.

The increasingly interconnected nature of our world means that failing to achieve coherence between climate- and peace and security-related policy domains forms a significant climate-related security risk. Poorly designed climate policies that are insensitive to pre-existing insecurities and conflict dynamics may undermine political stability, amplify social inequalities and grievances, and accelerate a loss of biodiversity and climate change-related impacts. Peace and security policies that do not account for climate risks may conversely promote ineffective and unresponsive interventions and risk locking communities into vicious cycles of insecurity and climate vulnerability. This work contributes to the climate securityproofing of policy outputs by developing a methodological framework that assesses the degree to which policy outputs and strategy documents display awareness of climate-related security risks and climatepeace opportunities. This framework is used to assess policies and strategies from across eight African countries. We find that despite some limited recognition of often place-specific climate-related security risks, a clear and shared conceptual understanding of the climate, peace and security nexus is generally lacking; climate and environment-related policies are generally more aware of climate security and have greater cross-sectoral engagement than peace and security-related policies; and that opportunities exist for the integration of climate security-related considerations into existing strategic priorities, instruments and programmatic activities.

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Approaches to operationalising the linkages between climate, peace and security are increasingly demanded by international organisations. Yet, there is a limited understanding of what effective programming practices that address climate-related security risks entail. Critical voices argue that programme designs often rely on analyses that ignore structural and cultural realities on the ground, leading to technocratic understandings of risks, and prescriptions for action that do not relate to people's experiences, perceptions and values. Advised by social learning theory, this study developed and evaluated a participatory appraisal method to guide the design of environmental peacebuilding programming strategies meant to address climate-related security risks. The method was evaluated across nine rural locations in Kenya, Senegal and Guatemala, involving 221 participants. Based on a critical evaluation of the method, opportunities and challenges for the use of social learning approaches to advise environmental peacebuilding programming are discussed. Results indicate that appraisal processes of collective reflection can support jointly articulated and context-relevant understandings of climate-related security risks. This shared knowledge can then support local communities in the design of climate adaptation strategies that potentially contribute to sustainable peacebuilding. Settings characterised by low political legitimacy and the unwillingness of conflictive actors to engage in dialogue are identified as barriers for the development of feasible programming strategies.