Acknowledging that climate change is a global threat to security in the 21st century, the Dutch government has convened an international conference on Planetary Security on 2-3 November 2015 in the Hague. The aim of the conference was to facilitate strategic exchange on existing foreign policy and security architecture.
The G7 Foreign Ministers can take a leading role in avoiding the increased weakening and even total collapse of states and societies threatened by fragility challenges. Resilience - understood as the existential ability of a nation or society to cope with major crises - has to become the compass for foreign policy.
This is one of the key recommendations of the recent report commissioned by interested G7 Foreign Ministries and authored by an international research consortium from Germany, France, Great Britain and the USA, led by think tank adelphi. These recommendations also fed into the final communiqué of the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Lübeck on 14-15 April 2015.
For many years, the EU pursued the strategy of 'leading by example’ in international climate negotiations.
As Pacific Islanders contemplate the scale of devastation wrought by Cyclone Pam this month across four Pacific Island states, including Vanuatu, leaders in the region are calling with renewed urgency for global action on climate finance, which they say is vital for building climate resilience and arresting development losses.
Cities need to be recognized, increasingly more so for their role in implementing necessary and timely action to address the impacts of climate change where it matters – at the local level. With majority of the global population living in urban environments, cities are major sources of carbon emissions as well as highly vulnerable to climate impacts. The involvement and participation of cities and urban localities are therefore important and required in terms of both climate adaptation and mitigation efforts.
On Friday December 12, 2014, delegates to the UNFCCC COP 20 discussed capacity building for climate finance at the event, 'Tools for Climate Finance Readiness: building capacity to support increased finance flows,' sponsored by Transparency International and adelphi, with the support of the Federal German Foreign Office, Climate Diplomacy, BMUB, NORAD, and the European Commission.
As negotiators look to next year’s UN climate conference in Paris, there is increasing discussion of a new way forward that does not depend on sweeping international agreements.
Climate change plays an increasingly important role in European security debates. The European Union (EU) has begun to develop “climate security” strategies that address the strategic and political impacts of climate change.
Southeast Asia is a region highly vulnerable to near and long-term climatic changes. In order to jointly address emerging climate risks and to complement multilateral negotiations through enhanced regional cooperation, a more comprehensive climate diplomacy approach is needed.
It has become a trend of sorts to publish an assessment of the most recent scientific findings related to climate change in the run up to the next high level event of international climate negotiations. After Copenhagen 2009 the next such event is now scheduled for Paris at the end of 2015.