UN Security Council Discusses Climate Change As Global Pressures Grow
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.
The meeting aims to facilitate a practical discussion about the tools the UN requires to address the peace and security implications of climate change. In particular, the participants will discuss the merits of the growing call to create an institutional home for climate-related security risks in the UN system. The meeting is co-hosted by Italy, Sweden, Morocco, the UK, the Netherlands, Peru, Japan, France, the Maldives and Germany.
The meeting marks a break from tradition. The UN Security Council has largely discussed climate change as an awareness-raising exercise. However, this year the Council passed the first resolution recognising climate-related security risks and the need to respond to them (resolution on ‘Peace and Security in Africa’). Yet, there is currently no process for creating climate risk assessment and risk management strategies in the UN system. Further, there is a growing frustration that the UN and the Security Council are not addressing the needs of the most challenged countries, despite the ‘Prevention Agenda’ set out by Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the start of his term. Guterres is under increasing pressure to respond to the growing call for action and address climate security issues more prominently.
Amidst political struggles and worsening climate realities, countries are expressing a growing interest in creating an institutional home for the management of climate-related security risks. This meeting will gauge support for this proposal and could be decisive for its future. The proposal to create an institutional home for climate-related security risks was first proposed by Sweden and builds upon the long-held demand from Small Island States and other climate-vulnerable countries for a high-level representative on climate security. The German and Dutch governments have also been active in supporting the call for an institutional home, and support for this approach is growing across the world.
A few days earlier, at the Planetary Security Conference 2017, the leading lights of the climate and security community launched an unprecedented declaration to catalyse action. The Hague Declaration sets out six recommendations for action on climate change and security – one of which calls for an institutional home on climate-security in the UN system. The Declaration has been signed by more than 70 leading experts on climate security, including 7 Ministers, from over 24 countries. The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs will present the Declaration and its six recommendations to the Security Council at today’s debate.
Find more information on the Arria meeting here.
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.