Climate Security – It’s Crunch Time
It’s crunch time for the global climate security discourse. While the COVID-19 crisis remains the key present challenge, it’s time to take stock of where the debate stands on the security implications of climate change in the run-up to another debate in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) scheduled for July 2020. The Berlin Climate Security Conference series initiated a year ago with a call for action complements the UNSC debate, with one conference taking place end of June and a follow-up conference in September 2020 to pave the way for more action. A “Global Climate Security Risk and Foresight Assessment,” intended to help identify concrete solutions, is part of implementing the call. It should enable the international community to design and implement early action to avoid an increase in fragility and decarbonisation on the basis of robust and interdisciplinary scientific findings.
This newsletter edition looks into some of the preliminary insights of the foresight assessment, and also aims at offering some insights into the perspective of non-permanent members – some of them heavily impacted by the consequences of climate change on their political, social and economic stability. Researchers from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt analysed the potential expectations of the Dominican Republic, Viet Nam, and South Africa. The three states are UNSC members in 2020 and acknowledge the economic and health risks posed by climate change as key vulnerabilities that can create common ground in New York in a few weeks. For the next years, India will also be a driving force as incoming non-permanent member of the Security Council. India has shown that it can be quite effective in promoting dialogue with developing countries on their key concerns. In this context, India is well-known for stressing principles such as fairness, representation and transparency. Seen in this light, there are some prospects for broadening the debate on climate security in the UNSC and good reason to take a second look at the follow-up to the July debate in New York.
The SDG 17 calls for getting the foundations right for substantial progress on the 2030 Agenda. It includes key conditions for successful sustainability action that are relevant across all actor groups, and most of them depend on international cooperation.
Intelligence analysts have agreed since the late 80s that climate change poses serious security risks. A series of authoritative governmental and non-governmental analyses over more than three decades lays a strong foundation for concern over climate change implications for national security.
Of Yellow Vests and Green Policies
Originally planned as a demonstration against fuel tax hikes, the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) revolts have sparked national and global debates. Some view the demonstrations as part of a rising anti-climate movement, while others draw parallels between the protests and demands for more climate action.
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.