In his recent address at the Climate Change and Security: Fragile States conference on March 30 2016, Canadian Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion spoke about the climate-security-nexus, stating that conflicts like the Syrian civil war may not have been caused by climate change but that climate change very well has amplified the risks.
Referring to report A New Climate for Peace, commissioned by the G7 foreign ministers, he reiterated that climate change multiplies risks in fragile states in seven ways (see the infographics).
Moreover, he emphasised the need to focus on interagency, cross-sectoral and multilateral efforts in order to address the challenges of climate change in fragile states:
“The holistic approach is what we need within our countries, but also between countries. We cannot work in isolation. When they met in Washington, Prime Minister Trudeau and President Barack Obama recognized the particular impact of climate change on countries already dealing with conflict and fragility. The leaders committed to addressing the intersection of climate change and security as an issue for foreign, defence and development policies.
That is the right approach. That is the way for developed countries to engage fragile states on adapting to climate change now, before they fall into chaos and become failed states. As the rest of the world marches forward with adapting to climate change, we should not leave fragile states behind.”
Resource consumption has grown exponentially over the past: between 1970 and 2010, the quantity of extracted materials has tripled. Not only the overall amount of resources extracted and consumed has risen rapidly, but also the diversity of resources has grown. While half a century ago, only a few materials such as wood, brick, iron, copper, and plastics were in high demand worldwide, today products are more complex and require a wide range of materials.
Times of war can result in rapid environmental degradation as people struggle to survive and environmental management systems break down resulting in damage to critical ecosystems. For over six decades, armed conflicts have occurred in more than two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity hotspots thus posing critical threats to conservation efforts. [...]
More than 4,700 delegates, including environment ministers, scientists, academics, business leaders and civil society representatives, met in Nairobi for the UN Environment Assembly, the world’s top environmental body whose decisions will set the global agenda, notably ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit in September.
Mid february, the EU's foreign affairs ministers welcomed the Commission’s strategic long-term vision for a climate neutral Europe. Ministers also called for urgent and decisive action to strengthen the global response on climate change and restated the EU’s determination to lead the way on accelerated climate action on all fronts.