Now that the at times turbulent US election has past, attention must return to cooperating on the global challenges that affect us all, like climate change which 23 high profile military leaders and experts from around the world have today labelled as a threat to peace and stability. In a joint Global Climate and Security Consensus Statement issued by the Climate Security Working Group, the signatories have called for world leaders to address climate risk in their national, regional and international security planning.
Signatories range from Rear Admiral David Titley, Ph.D., U.S. Navy (ret) Former Oceanographer of the Navy Professor of Practice, Pennsylvania State University to Lieutenant General Tariq Waseem Ghazi (ret) Pakistan and former Dutch diplomat, Alexander Verbeek, who founded the Institute for Planetary Security. The Institute is involved in an annual conference in The Hague on December 5 and 6 which will explore how to build peace and cooperation in times of climate change and global environmental challenges.
The Climate Security Working Group - International is a non-partisan collective of experts who work together to ensure governments are responding to the risk posed to peace and security by climate change.
The statement comes after the Obama Administration launched a presidential memo in September which requires the National Security Council complete an "Action Plan" to address climate security by around December 21 and follow up with an implementation plan by the end of February. This move is considered to be one of the most comprehensive responses to climate and security issues of a national government so far, and comes off the back of the G7's work in the area. At the Paris Climate Summit last year, a "Climate Displacement Task Force" was established to draw up recommendations on measures "to avert, minimise and address displacement related to the adverse effects of climate change." But of course there is much more to do with very few countries having actually incorporate climate change risk into their defense strategies.
Read the statement.
This article originally appeared on the Planetary Security Initiative's website.
The Planetary Security Conference, co-organised by adelphi and other leading think tanks, is meant to address the climate-security nexus and will take place from 5-6 December in The Hague.