As part of the University of Queensland’s ongoing partnership with adelphi, the Environment, Conflict and Cooperation exhibition was on display at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane for three weeks from July-August 2016.
The exhibition was very well received by students and staff at UQ as well as the wider Brisbane community. The ECC Exhibition is part of the Climate Diplomacy Initiative that is a collaborative effort of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany with adelphi, a leading Berlin-based think tank for applied research, policy analysis and consultancy on global change issues.
The exhibition was accompanied by two public events. Associate Professor Matt McDonald from UQ’s School of Politics and International Studies presented a seminar on ‘Climate Change and Security’. The lecture outlined discourses and contemporary thinking on the climate change-security relationship, particularly as it relates to the nation-state, the international community, human welfare or even ecosystem resilience. It made a strong case for climate change as the defining global security threat: now and especially into the future.
The seminar was well-attended and concluded with a lively discussion on climate thresholds, range of security implications and likely next steps across policy and practice.
The exhibition’s closing was marked by a panel discussion on ‘Issues of Global Change’ that brought together three of UQ’s top researchers in the areas of water, energy, mining and conflict. Dr Nina Hall (Global Change Institute, Sustainable Water Program), Professor Paul Lant (co-leader Energy and Poverty Research Group) and Professor Saleem Ali (Sustainable Minerals Institute) each presented their views on the interlinkages among these three critical areas of global concern as well as outlined UQ’s leading efforts on this front.
In total, nearly 80 people attended the two events. The exhibition received a strong endorsement from the speakers as well as the audience for its innovative style of story-telling that brought together compelling evidence of change happening across several world regions. A final message that came through from these discussions was around the enormous challenge that lies ahead of us and that there is no room for complacency moving forward.
You can explore the online version of the Environment, Conflict and Cooperation exhibition here.
The European Green Deal has made the environment and climate change the focus of EU action. Indeed, climate change impacts are already increasing the pressure on states and societies; however, it is not yet clear how the EU can engage on climate security and environmental peacemaking. In this light, and in the run-up to the German EU Council Presidency, adelphi and its partners are organising a roundtable series on “Climate, environment, peace: Priorities for EU external action in the decade ahead”.
In January 2020, the German Federal Foreign Office launched Green Central Asia, a regional initiative on climate and security in Central Asia and Afghanistan. The aim of the initiative is to support a dialogue in the region on climate change and associated risks in order to foster regional integration between the six countries involved.
Climate change will shift key coordinates of foreign policy in the coming years and decades. Even now, climate policy is more than just environment policy; it has long since arrived at the centre of foreign policy. The German Foreign Office recently released a report on climate diplomacy recognizing the biggest challenges to security posed by climate change and highlighting fields of action for strengthening international climate diplomacy.
A high-level ministerial conference in Berlin is looking at the impact of climate change on regional security in Central Asia. The aim is to foster stronger regional cooperation, improve the exchange of information and form connections with academia and civil society.