High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini hosted on 22 June 2018 an unprecedented high level event - Climate, Peace and Security: The Time for Action - which drove home both the urgency and importance of tackling the risks that climate change poses to security and peace. Ministers from around the world, top United Nations officials, and leading experts testified to the many real and potential security threats deriving from climate change.
Climate shocks as drivers of migration might be long present in the environmental narrative, but they are hardly being addressed on a policy level. According to MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, the lack of a legal definition of ‘climate refugees’ effectively excludes the issue from international agendas – and creates space for generalized scepticism.
In May 2018, the Brazilian Institute for Climate and Society and the German Embassy in Brazil hosted an event on international climate and security in Rio de Janeiro. The meeting, joined by experts from the public sector, civil society and international think tanks, reflects Latin America’s increased interest in the international dimension of climate fragility risks.
Resolving environmental conflicts is important for creating and sustaining peace. But the connections between environmental problems and social or political conflicts are complex. The ECC Factbook investigates climate-security links and offers a detailed, interactive map to explore more than 120 case studies. The editorial team is happy to announce 5 new features that make it even easier to access relevant information.
Climate refugees, people fleeing climate change’s impacts by moving to new homes, may number over 140 million by 2050, the World Bank reports.
The traditionally unassuming role played by security organizations in climate deliberations is being turned upside-down. As climate threats undermine global security, military agencies and reactive bodies must look at climate change as more than just an environmental issue. We spoke to Jan Broeks, Director General of the International Military Staff at NATO, at the Planetary Security Conference 2017 about NATO’s role in this shifting paradigm.
The UN Security Council has identified climate change as a driver of conflict across West Africa and the Sahel, in a statement published last Tuesday.
The Lake Chad region experiences a multitude of crises: lack of employment and education opportunities, resource scarcity and violent conflict, all exacerbated by the effects of climate change, making the Lake Chad region Africa’s largest humanitarian emergency. At the margins of the Planetary Security Conference 2017, we spoke with the independent conflict adviser Chitra Nagarajan about the region’s future.
The UN Security Council is hosting an Arria meeting on ‘Preparing for the security implications of rising temperatures’ on 15 December at the UN headquarters in New York. As climate-induced security threats have become more pressing, the highest body of global governance is slowly taking up the issue again.
In December, the leading lights of the climate and security community launched an unprecedented declaration to catalyse action in the field in front of 350 participants at the Planetary Security Conference.