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.
Initiated in 2015, the French Ministry for the Armed Forces organized the first international conference “Defence and climate: what are the stakes?”. Since then, the Ministry has been constantly adapting and developing its capacity of anticipation.
On 25 January 2019, the UN Security Council held an open debate to discuss the security implications of climate-related disaster events. The meeting, initiated by the Dominican Republic, underscored the global nature of climate-related disasters. Most speakers highlighted the need for better climate risk management as an important contribution to safeguarding international peace and security. The debate marks the beginning of a year in which climate security ranks high on the UN’s agenda.
Today, Friday 25th January 2019, the UN Security Council will hold an open debate addressing the impacts of climate-related disasters on international peace and security (at 4pm CET and 10am EST). President Danilo Medina of the Dominican Republic will chair the meeting, which will also include the participation of several member states at ministerial level.
The unabated growth of natural resource consumption raises risks that we will outstrip the capacities of ecosystems and governance institutions. At the same time, to achieve important global goals related to poverty alleviation, public health, equity and economic development such as those embodied in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we will simultaneously need more resources and better management of natural resources everywhere.