More than one year after the United Nations Security Council discussed the challenge of climate change to peace and security, it may be appropriate to ask what kind of follow up, if any, can be observed. The presidential statement, adopted by the participants on 20th July at the Security Council, asks for further contextual information on possible security implications of climate change, especially when the respective impacts are endangering processes of peace consolidation. The New York event has so far been followed by two international conferences: one in Berlin in October 2011 and one in London in March 2012. They took different perspectives but shared a joint intention: to give guidance to urgently needed geopolitical change management in the light of a changing climate.
The participants at the Berlin Conference “Climate Diplomacy in Perspective” in the Federal Foreign Office asked decision makers to reach beyond their traditional, thematic and even geographic focus. Based on discussions on the distinct challenges of water resource management, food security and coastal stability, the relevance of informal diplomacy, e.g. via Track II initiatives, was emphasized. In addition, the conference participants called for a conflict-sensitive design of climate policies to create peace-positive environments.
The London Conference, “A Climate and Resource Security Dialogue for the 21st Century“, reconfirmed that the climate change threat requires a “new diplomacy” approach involving the whole of society. Existing institutions should be the focus of restructuring processes to enable a transformation towards resilient societies. This institutional dimension was further elaborated by making more concrete recommendations on institutional innovations as a response to a more insecure climate. According to the participants, the UN should establish a Special Representative on Climate and Security. His or her mandate would be to advocate and assess the implications of climate and security in developing nations. In addition, foreign ministries should play a key role by coordinating the integration of different policy areas affected by climate change, such as development and security. Better coordination may also be needed to implement another set of recommendations at the national level: the creation of national platforms for dialogue and regular climate security impact assessments.
With the two conferences, the Foreign Ministries of Germany and the UK showed a strong commitment to take this non-traditional foreign policy challenge seriously. With a high-level side event during the UN Week at the end of September, the Federal Foreign Office also brought the topic back to New York. In the months to come, further regional dialogues are planned. In London, South Korea indicated its willingness to invite diplomats for another round. In sum, these efforts may help to ensure that the Security Council debate is not an isolated event but the starting signal for a new era of diplomacy.
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.