Panic – what role for it in climate diplomacy?
“I want you to panic”. This was the message that 16 year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg gave to the World Economic Forum in Davos on 25 January, and in it she struck right to the intergenerational justice issue at the heart of the sustainability project.
Although COP24 more or less delivered the rules the international community needs to go ahead and implement the ambitious climate action foreseen in the Paris Agreement, there has been disappointment and frustration about the overall dynamic of the climate negotiation process. This young activist’s call to focus 2020’s forum of the self-proclaimed world economic elite on the climate and environment crisis is therefore more than appropriate.
Even more so since – exactly at the same time as Greta was presenting her personal risk assessment in Davos – the United Nations Security Council was again debating how climate change is a threat to peace and security. The debate on 25 January in New York was welcomed by almost all of the 80 plus countries that participated with a statement. There was a broad consensus that climate change poses serious threats, so it is now on the Security Council to engage more systematically on this issue. Calls for improvements to early warning systems and more widespread use of integrated climate risk assessments featured prominently during the debate, despite their often technical nature. More pronounced calls for action (or reasons for more “panic” if you will) came with the reflections in other Security Council debates that climate change impacts are contributing to the violent conflicts in the Lake Chad Basin, Somalia, Mali and Darfur. These examples can serve to increase our understanding of the complex interrelationship between climate change and conflict, as they illustrate how climate change serves as a crisis multiplier.
Panic is not necessarily the best emotion to advise us as we seek to design and implement solutions to the climate crisis – but it may be the one we need to ensure that 2020 is a major turning point towards cross-sectoral transformative change.
Even as the US officially pulled out of the Paris Agreement earlier this week, it might be too soon to lose hope on the country's long-term commitments to climate action. If a Democrat wins the upcoming presidential elections, which are set for November 2020, a reaccession process could begin shortly after the withdrawal is complete. In the meantime, however, the effect on trade policy could be significant.
European peatlands could turn from carbon sinks to sources as a quarter have reached levels of dryness unsurpassed in a record stretching back 2,000 years, according to a new study. This trend of “widespread” and “substantial” drying corresponds to recent climate change, both natural and human-caused, but may also be exacerbated by the peatlands being used for agriculture and fuel.
Tackling Food Security and Protracted Crisis in Horn of Africa
The Kingdom of the Netherlands has contributed $28 million to back FAO's work to boost the resilience of food systems in Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan - part of a new initiative to scale-up resilience-based development work in countries affected by protracted crises.
A group of five small countries have announced that they will launch negotiations on a new Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability, which, if successful, would constitute the first international trade agreement focused solely on climate change and sustainable development. The initiative also breaks new ground by aiming to simultaneously remove barriers for trade in environmental goods and services and crafting binding rules to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. Small countries can pioneer the development of new trade rules that can help achieve climate goals, but making credible commitments, attracting additional participants, and ensuring transparency will be essential ingredients for long-term success.