Depoliticizing Vulnerability & Climate Action in Conflict Contexts: Reflections from Southeast Myanmar

Summary

Climate change adaptation is often framed as a technical, apolitical process, yet adaptation policies and projects can deepen social inequities, perpetuate injustices, and intensify existing conflicts. This paper examines how violent conflict, vulnerability, and climate actions intersected in southeastern Myanmar in the years leading up to the 2021 military coup, drawing on in-depth interviews from multi-sited fieldwork conducted in 2018–2019, combined with critical policy analysis. By analyzing lived experiences of climate change and conflict in Karen State and Tanintharyi Region, the study highlights how structural violence undermines community resilience. The paper also argues that the depoliticization of climate actions obscures inherent political contestations and may legitimize interventions that (re)produce social injustices and perpetuate underlying grievances. These findings emphasize the need to integrate conflict considerations into climate policies and projects, and to place climate justice principles at the heart of climate actions to ensure equitable and effective adaptation efforts.