During April 10 and11 2016, the G7 Foreign Ministers met at Hiroshima, Japan to discuss current international affairs in the run-up to the G7 Summit in May. In the final Joint Communiqué they once again took a strong stance on tackling climate-fragility risks collectively. They endorsed a quick entry into force of the Paris Agreement by all parties, while also emphasizing the role of the G7 in the prevention of climate fragility risks and the need to further consider these challenges as part of their foreign policies.
In this speech at the Climate Change and Security: Fragile State Conference, Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, points out the connections between climate change and fragility, drawing on specific country examples. He stresses the need for integrated actions and the potential of Canada.
The EU and its Member States have been major contributors to achieving the landmark Paris Agreement. Dennis Tänzler and Stephan Wolters outline what needs to be done to keep up with this high level of engagement.
Most of the progressive policies and significant challenges with regard to climate change are found in cities. A recent study by adelphi looked at ways of integrating urban actors in international climate governance to find more effective climate solutions. Kaj Fischer sums up the results.
"We very much did engage on big issues throughout our conversations [...]. Whether it's how we ensure that there is no contradiction between a strong economy and a protected environment; understand how we need to work together as individual countries and indeed as a planet to address the challenges of climate change."
At a time when migration has become one of the biggest challenges facing the European Union, the debate surrounding the role of environmental factors in fuelling conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, causing migration, is gaining momentum.
"Over the years, the United Nations, Governments and the people of the world have come to recognize climate change as a deadly peril to our ecosystems and, by that, to our security and, indeed, our survival. We may in many cases in life have a Plan B – but we simply have no Planet B.” - Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, speaking at the 52nd Munich Security Conference
‘No challenge poses a greater threat to our future and future generations than a change in climate’. Thus spoke President Obama, and most Western leaders have done likewise. Yet as the security policy community descends on Munich for its annual conference, climate change is likely to be a sideshow, again, despite the global attention that climate change received in the context of December’s conference in Paris.
In dealing with climate change we are facing the challenge of a transformation to sustainability (WBGU 2011). What needs to be done? To combat climate change, we need to make significant greenhouse gas savings. But is this the only goal we should set ourselves? No, the transformation goes deeper than this: It confronts us with the question of how we want to live -- now and in the future.
Now that the much-awaited Paris (COP-21) Summit has come to an end with a broad consensus on the post-2020 – termed a historic breakthrough – the next steps towards planning and implementation are to be taken in an incremental fashion. Amidst fears that talks would be derailed, due to differences between developed and developing nations, the least developed and island nations played a crucial role in pressing hard for their demands, ensuring that an agreement was reached.