“Climate Diplomacy in Perspective” explores challenges for foreign policy
adelphi’s latest publication “Climate Diplomacy in Perspective – From Early Warning to Early Action” highlights the key positions in the debate on the security risks of climate change and the prospects of climate diplomacy.
The compilation, edited by adelphi’s experts on climate and security, Dennis Taenzler and Alexander Carius, builds on a conference on “Climate Diplomacy in Perspective” hosted by the German Federal Foreign Office and adelphi in Berlin in October 2011. More than 100 policy makers and experts from over 30 countries had come together to discuss the importance of enhancing the dialogue on climate change and security, building early warning capacities and fostering partnerships for early action and conflict prevention.
With insightful contributions from politicians, experts and leading scholars, the publication gives particular emphasis to water resource management, global food security, and rising sea levels that threaten coastal areas and low-lying island states. The authors explore ways to further develop regional cooperation and dialogue in light of a changing climate and provide strong arguments for urgent action that complements international climate negotiations.
The publication is available here: http://bwv.verlag-online.eu/shop/bwv/apply/viewdetail/id/4496/
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To fight illegal coca plantations and conflict actors’ income sources, Colombia’s president wants to loosen the ban on aerial glyphosate spraying. However, considering the dynamics of organised crime, the use of toxic herbicides will not only fail to achieve its aim, it will have many adverse effects for the environment and human health, fundamentally undermining ways to reach peace in the country. International cooperation and national policy-makers need to account for this peace spoiler.
As India grapples with the worsening impacts of climate change, the need to strengthen its adaptation efforts has become more significant than ever. Climate diplomacy and mainstreaming climate adaptation into the most vulnerable sectors could provide some solutions to overcoming barriers, such as the lack of sustainable funding.
“Climate Security risks will materialise in very different ways and forms, whether we talk about Lake Chad or about the Arctic, Bangladesh and the Small Island Developing States,” said the EU’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Joao Vale de Almeida, in his opening remarks. “But for the EU, there is no doubt, as underlined in 2016 in our Global Strategy, and reaffirmed by the 28 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, that climate change is a major threat to the security of the EU and to global peace and security more generally,” he said.
The challenges facing the international community are growing while the willingness to cooperate seems to be waning. Foreign policy must help bridge this gap. One way to accomplish this is by pushing forward a major achievement of multilateralism: the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. At a side event during the 2019 High-Level Political Forum, diplomats and policy experts discussed the role of foreign policy in the global sustainability architecture.