Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a “U.S.-Canada Joint Statement on Climate, Energy, and Arctic Leadership”. The statement emphasizes the importance of addressing compound climate-fragility risks, and both leaders agree to continue addressing these challenges, in particular through the G7 working group on climate and fragility:
“Recognizing the particular impact of climate change on countries already dealing with conflict and fragility, the leaders commit to addressing the intersection of climate change and security as an issue for foreign, defense, and development policies. Through the G-7 working group on climate and security and elsewhere, both sides will work together to support sound analysis, practical recommendations, and meaningful cooperation to address climate-fragility risks.”
G7 Foreign Ministers set up the climate-fragility working group in April 2015 to evaluate the recommendations of the New Climate for Peace report by an international consortium led by adelphi.
The joint statement furthermore acknowledges the leadership role of both countries in promoting global climate change action and reiterates the commitment to continue cooperation in this field bilaterally as well as through multilateral fora like the G20.
In June 2010, The New York Times published a front page story trumpeting a Pentagon announcement of roughly $1 trillion worth of mineral resources in Afghanistan. Officials said the discovery was “far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself.” Then-President Hamid Karzai soon inflated the figure to $3 trillion and then again to $30 trillion, enough to transform the country into the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.”
Approaches developed in Mali, Senegal, Kenya and Tanzania offer insights for building resilience in areas facing risks of climate change, disasters and conflict.
The idea that climate change is causing migration and displacement is entering the mainstream, but experts have warned against using the term “climate refugees” to describe what we’re seeing in small islands, coastal regions, and even conflict zones like Syria.
A paper published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tests the hypothesis that climate related natural disasters may be part of the cause of conflict in countries with high ethnic fractionalization.