Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has become the latest person to deliver a blunt warning about the risks of climate change to global financial stability. Speaking at Lloyd’s of London, Carney warned that “the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors – imposing a cost on future generations” and that “climate change will threaten financial resilience and longer-term prosperity.”
His speech came as the Bank of England published a report on the impact of climate change on the British insurance industry, to be presented to the UK government, and sees the governor join a host of economic figureheads warning about the risk of continued reliance on dirty fossil fuels.
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Global progress towards achieving the SDGs is slow, and for many targets, off track. While SDG implementation is primarily a national task and responsibility, it also requires concerted international cooperation. This article presents two arguments why foreign policy could play an important role in their achievement.
No country is immune to natural hazards, but for fragile states, the effects are even more severe. Mostly, conflict prevention and humanitarian aid are seen as more pressing priorities to protect livelihoods there. This pushes efforts of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction to the bottom of the priority list and results in compounded pressures.
As the debate over climate-related security risks grows, many Pacific Island States are calling for more action by the international community to better address the links between climate change and global security. In an interview with adelphi, the former President of Nauru, Baron Waqa, highlights some of these calls as well as the challenges in getting the climate-security issue on the UN’s agenda.
A record breaking European heatwave provided a fitting backdrop to the latest round of UN climate change talks, in which delegates from around the world descended on Bonn for a two-week diplomatic effort.