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.
Over the past decade, the number of undernourished people around the world has declined by around 167 million, to just under 800 million people. However, this positive trend glosses over a stark reality: Food insecurity is increasing in the world’s mountains. This pattern has been under-recognized by development experts and governments, a dangerous oversight with far-reaching social and environmental repercussions.
Wrapped in a purple boubou (robe), Salou Moussa Maïga, 60, sits with his hands clasped between his knees and explains how climate change has fuelled violent conflict in Ansongo, Mali. As the president of a farming cooperative, he knows the cost of drought all too well. ‘The rain period has decreased considerably from years ago … we don’t have grass anymore,’ he told ISS Today. ‘Everything is naked.’
2015 was a historic year for international commitments to sustainable development, climate change action, and new kinds of peacebuilding. For governments and policymakers, now comes the difficult task of living up to those commitments.
Security concerns, like ISIS and a revanchist Russia, tend to dominate people’s attention, but less sensational challenges to stability and economic development are piling up as well, threatening to overwhelm humanitarian budgets and prompting governments to shift funding from development to emergency aid.
By joining up action – and funding – on climate change, conflict and poverty, the world’s biggest crises could get easier to manage.