“Some of the security challenges we face today are, by their nature, short-term and acute. Others are longer term, but no less pressing. Over the years, the United Nations, Governments and the people of the world have come to recognize climate change as a deadly peril to our ecosystems and, by that, to our security and, indeed, our survival. We may in many cases in life have a Plan B – but we simply have no Planet B.”
Remarks by Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, at the Munich Security Conference dinner to present the 2016 Ewald-Von-Kleist Award to H.E. Laurent Fabius and Christiana Figueres (Munich, 13 February 2016)
Photo: From left to right - Jan Eliasson (Deputy Secretary General, United Nations), Laurent Fabius (former Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, French Republic; President, COP21), Horst Seehofer (Minister-President, Free State of Bavaria), and Wolfgang Ischinger (Ambassador, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference). Credit: MSC / Kuhlmann.
It’s official: India has been elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for 2021-22. Previously, the country has adopted a cautionary approach towards climate security. While it may not significantly shift its positions, global realities may trigger more openness, with an eye on multilateralism, rule of law and fairness.
75 years ago, the UN was born. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the UN looks back at several important achievements, but much work on persisting challenges still lies ahead. Increased UN engagement in three areas can make the region more resilient to future challenges.
Conflicts connected to water-security are often related to climate change issues. However, the link between water-scarcity-related risks and security challenges is not as straightforward, direct and immediate as often perceived. The online workshop ‘Mobilising decision-makers on water scarcity-induced conflict risks: The Water, Peace and Security Partnership’, organised by the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) and adelphi, looked into this complex relationship.
Insecurity is plaguing north-western Nigeria, due to persistent herder-farmer tensions, rising crime and infiltration by Islamist militants. Federal and state authorities should focus on resolving conflict between agrarian and pastoralist communities, through dialogue and resource-sharing agreements, while also stepping up law enforcement.