Ambassador Susan Rice, recently-appointed to be President Obama’s National Security Advisor, gave parting remarks on her last day as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday. In her speech, she expressed the need for the U.S. and the international community to address the “grave consequences of climate change.” Here’s the full quote:
"There remain big questions about the future of development—including how to forge a post-2015 development agenda that continues to eradicate poverty and foster economic growth in a sustainable way. And as President Obama discussed today, we have significant work ahead to prepare for and mitigate the grave consequences of climate change."
For the complete article, please see The Centre for Climate & Security.
2019 has only just begun, but it is already hard to imagine that there will be other extreme weather events with disastrous consequences such as cyclone Idai happening again this year. In all likelihood, such events will continue to occur as 2019 rolls on. Idai is, once more, proof of how devastating and toxic the mix of climate change, extreme weather events and poverty can be: Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe – countries that rank low in human development but contribute very little to global greenhouse gas emissions – suffer from some of the worst impacts of climate change.
adelphi has relaunched its exhibition Environment, Conflict and Cooperation (ECC) Exhibition to illustrate how unprecedented environmental changes interact with social, political, and economic risks to exacerbate conflict. We invite you to explore our online exhibition and to learn more about urgent issues of our time: climate, energy, migration, extractives, food and water.
Climate security risks are, by all interpretations, a global threat. But when it comes to setting a political climate security agenda, a handful of countries stand out. In an interview with Climate Diplomacy, Michaela Spaeth, Director for Energy and Climate Policy at the German Federal Foreign Office, highlights some of Germany’s goals and challenges in forwarding the issue during its 2019-20 membership in the UN Security Council.
The Planetary Security Conference 2019, which concluded on 20 February, saw a number of workshops being held on the Sahel region and specifically Mali, one of the Conference’s three spotlight regions. These workshops examined the region’s climate-water-security risks as well as the #doable actions and solutions to address these issues.