Capacity Building
Climate Change
Early Warning & Risk Analysis
North America
Caitlin Werrell and Francesco Femia

The U.S. State Department has just released its “2014 U.S. Climate Action Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.” As announced on the official website:

"On January 1, 2014, the Department of State submitted the 2014 U.S. Climate Action Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This report, which includes the First U.S. Biennial Report and Sixth U.S. National Communication to the UNFCCC, details actions the United States is taking domestically and internationally to mitigate, adapt to, and assist others in addressing climate change. The 2014 U.S. Climate Action Report fulfills requirements under the UNFCCC for all Parties to report periodically on actions and progress in combating climate change. The last U.S. Climate Action Report submitted was in 2010. Over the course of 2014, UNFCCC Parties will provide their first biennial reports: developed countries are to provide theirs by January 1, 2014 and developing countries are to provide biennial update reports by the end of the year."

The report can be found here, 2014 U.S. Climate Action Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. For our readers, we have excerpted sections of the report below that explicitly highlight climate change as a national security concern. The concepts of “risk” and “preparedness,”  that are central to an understanding of the national security implications of a changing climate, are also embedded throughout the report (as are energy, food and water security), but for clarity, we are only including excerpts that explicitly mention climate change as a matter of “U.S. national security.” Mentions of U.S. national security appear most frequently in sections dedicated to vulnerability, adaptation and research, and systematic observations.

From the “First US Biennial Report” portion of the report:

For the complete article, please see The Center for Climate and Security.

Susanne Wolfmaier (adelphi)

In his address on this year’s World Cities Day, UN-Secretary General António Guterres recognised that “cities have borne the brunt of the pandemic” and called upon governments to “prepare cities for future disease outbreaks”. Authorities cannot waste this opportunity to build back better by simultaneously addressing the increasing economic hardship for the urban poor and climate change impacts. This will help prevent not only future health risks but also the increased risk of urban violence and insecurity.

Georgina Gustin, InsideClimate News

The new group will try to advance climate policies, even as some of its members are likely to clash. Critics say the group’s efforts won’t go far enough.

Dhanasree Jayaram, MAHE

With climate change increasingly affecting food production in South Asia, it is time to focus on making food markets more resilient to climate shocks.

Conflict Transformation
Global Issues
Micheal Keating, EIP

Michael Keating, Executive Director at the European Institue of Peace (EIP), argues that peacebuilding and conflict resolution must not disregard the impacts of the climate crisis on livelihoods, social cohesion and conflict resolution.