The leading lights of the global community working on the risk to security posed by climate change will meet in The Hague on December 5-6 at the Planetary Security Conference. Launched in 2015, the Planetary Security Initiative (PSI) was created by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a three year programme to engage representatives at all levels of governance, academia, civil society, and the private sector to work together on timely responses to climate-related threats to security.
The conference is now organised by a consortium of leading think tanks and brings together expert input on policy solutions in this field. Many more organisations are involved in co-organising 12 Working Groups to discuss pressing issues on this increasingly urgent security agenda. Clingendael Institute heads the consortium. Project Manager Louise van Schaik said “We are very excited to move from the introduction of the problem to formulating solutions. For that we need international political support up to the highest level.”
On behalf of the Netherlands government, foreign minister Koenders will deliver the opening address. At last years' conference he emphasised the pressure on the world’s economic, social and political systems caused by climate change, and that the "most serious risks will emerge when the impacts of climate change overburden weak states". Speaking at the Conference will be Netherlands Chief of Defence General Tom Middendorp who said earlier this month climate change impacts were fuelling war worldwide. “Climate change creates conflict, it creates a ground for extremism, it creates a ground for migration flows,” Middendorp said.
Although numerous governments and institutions such as the UN and NATO have recognized climate impacts on conflict and human security, we now need to translate this into putting policies in place to deal with these risks which are still underestimated. This conference aims to improve understanding in foreign and defense policy circles.
Alexander Verbeek, advisor of the Planetary Security Initiative, said, “The PSI is about engaging the policy makers as we work to translate experts’ analysis into action. We aim to move forward, and quickly, on last year’s interaction of these two constituent groups from over 75 countries.”
Two groundbreaking reports were prepared as key inputs to the conference - a new monitor, the Economics of Planetary Security: Climate Change as an Economic Conflict Factor, which has for the first time modelled the economic impact of climate change in conjunction with conflict risk with startling results. The second report, Towards A Global Resilience Agenda, assesses the developments in the climate and security policy space and finds further progress in this regard crucial as the security environment has worsened over the past 18 months.
Other top speakers at the Conference include Amina J. Mohammed, Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Peter Fischer, Deputy Director General for Energy and Climate Policy and Export Control, German Federal Foreign Office; Paula Caballero, Global Director, Climate Program, World Resources Institute (WRI); and André Haspels, Director General Political Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.
At the conference, participants will strategise in working groups on the following topics:
The goal of the Planetary Security Initiative (PSI) is to strengthen the knowledge-policy interface by consolidating the community of practice on planetary security. The operating consortium of leading think tanks working on this topic includes the following institutions:
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The European Green Deal has made the environment and climate change the focus of EU action. Indeed, climate change impacts are already increasing the pressure on states and societies; however, it is not yet clear how the EU can engage on climate security and environmental peacemaking. In this light, and in the run-up to the German EU Council Presidency, adelphi and its partners are organising a roundtable series on “Climate, environment, peace: Priorities for EU external action in the decade ahead”.
In January 2020, the German Federal Foreign Office launched Green Central Asia, a regional initiative on climate and security in Central Asia and Afghanistan. The aim of the initiative is to support a dialogue in the region on climate change and associated risks in order to foster regional integration between the six countries involved.
Climate change will shift key coordinates of foreign policy in the coming years and decades. Even now, climate policy is more than just environment policy; it has long since arrived at the centre of foreign policy. The German Foreign Office recently released a report on climate diplomacy recognizing the biggest challenges to security posed by climate change and highlighting fields of action for strengthening international climate diplomacy.
A high-level ministerial conference in Berlin is looking at the impact of climate change on regional security in Central Asia. The aim is to foster stronger regional cooperation, improve the exchange of information and form connections with academia and civil society.