adelphi helps bring climate security to the Munich Security Conference
The mission of the Munich Security Conference is to “address the world’s most pressing security concerns”. These days, that means climate security: climate change is the ultimate threat multiplier, and anyone discussing food security, political instability, migration, or competition over resources should be aware of the climate change pressures that are so often at the root of security problems.
These climate security issues were on the agenda throughout the conference, as speakers from former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to former US Secretary of State John Kerry brought issues of environmental degradation to a conference best known for attracting the world’s most prominent generals and defence ministers. The MSC came hot on the heels of the World Economic Forum in Davos, whose top five risks for 2020 were all about climate and the environment.
adelphi Senior Adviser Janani Vivekananda was one of the panellists at an MSC town hall on food (in)security. Alongside UN World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley and Bayer AG Chairman Werner Baumann, she spoke about how to reduce world hunger and thus the attendant security impacts. World hunger, Vivekananda argued, is largely not about availability of food but rather about “access, inequality, poverty and government policies”. Troublingly, “food security is increasing the risk of violence at every level in society between households, between different groups, and between people and the state.”
adelphi will continue to put climate security on the agenda and to contribute its expertise to the world’s most important international security conferences.
If you would like to find out more about food security in the context of climate change, take a look at our work on the Lake Chad region.
COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid
This year’s annual UN climate conference, COP25 in Madrid, became the longest on record when it concluded after lunch on Sunday, following more than two weeks of fraught negotiations. It had been scheduled to wrap up on Friday.
On 29 November in Rabat, adelphi partnered with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to hold a regional dialogue on climate change and fragility risks in North Africa and the Sahel.
It’s adaptation (financing), stupid!
As the second week of COP25 begins in Madrid, it is time to stress once more the importance of building momentum for adaptation. There is obviously a need for adaptation planning, implementation and financing. However, so far only seventeen countries have presented National Adaptation Plans (NAP) - despite international partners providing important support.
Inclusivity can be a powerful vehicle of climate action
The momentum for climate action we are witnessing is extraordinary. Throughout 2019, millions of people took the streets all around the world to join the youth climate movement's school strike. Yet at this year’s most important climate politics meeting, the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, most governments were far from committing to sufficient action to avert dangerous climate change. Dr. Beatrice Mosello and Dr. Virginie Le Masson explain how to move things forward.