France includes climate change as key feature of its defence activities
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.
In October 2017, France identifies climate change as a key feature of the strategic environment. In its Strategic Review of Defence and National Security climate change is taken to increase the unpredictability and pose new forms of risks and threats. Now, the French Ministry of Defence published an official document of how climate change impacts on its work and what this means for France.
According to the French Ministry of Defence, climate change, combined with other political, economic, demographic and social factors, is degrading human security and global stability. It undermines the resilience of the most fragile states, whose populations are the first victims and are thus likely to favour the emergence of conflicts or crises. Environmental degradation poses a challenge to armed forces with regard to their operational adaptation and capacity.
Video: What is France’s view on climate security? – Interview with François Gemenne (adelphi)
France is directly exposed, on both its mainland and overseas territories: new health risks such as infectious diseases spread by tiger mosquitoes, security of critical infrastructures, particularly coastal ones, and increased need for surveillance of maritime areas, especially marine protected areas. The intensification of extreme weather events also amplifies the number and severity of humanitarian crises, requiring a greater mobilization of military forces, in support of the civil security forces.
At the international level, the action of the French armed forces is part of a logic of solidarity and prevention. Indeed, responsible for the world’s second economic exclusive zone, France contributes to disaster management operations on all oceans and dedicates a significant military effort to protect marine ecosystems. These issues could lead to a change in the distribution of the missions and intervention capabilities of the armed forces.
Finally, the scale of territorial location and the level of resources consumption (energy in particular) of the French Ministry for the Armed Forces impose a specific responsibility on it to reduce its ecological footprint.
For more detailed information please look here.
[This article originally appeared on planetarysecurityinitiative.org]
Planetary Security Initiative
Linking climate change and peacebuilding in Colombia through land access
Colombia’s long-standing internal conflict and the country’s contribution to climate change share one common root cause: land concentration. Policies to strengthen access to land and to ensure sustainable land use might therefore hold the key to promoting peacebuilding in Colombia, while simultaneously reducing emissions.
Climate-related disasters pose grave challenges to health in South Asia
As disasters wreak havoc all over South Asia, health impacts have increasingly emerged as a major concern for communities and governments in the region. It underscores the need for concerted efforts towards building synergies between the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, particularly now, in the post-disaster reconstruction phase, to ensure “building back better” and future disaster prevention.
Forty years of tree-planting in China: successes and failures
In the Inner Mongolian county of Horinger, Northwestern China, afforestation efforts have transformed a barren, dusty landscape into a pine forest. Planting trees has diminished the sandstorms, boosted biodiversity and improved the environment generally. As the climate emergency worsens, the potential for planted trees to draw carbon out of the atmosphere is being re-examined. What can the world learn from the Chinese experience with afforestation?
Two events in August 2019 underlined the complexity of paving the way to a climate-neutral world: the publishing of the new IPCC report and the Amazon fires. Both events demand that climate diplomats move beyond a narrowed focus on energy in decarbonisation debates.