Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter “Laudato Si”, published on 18 June 2015, is a moral plea for action against climate change and environmental degradation. Besides laying out the Pope’s critical stance on the ecological, spiritual and economic motives to ‘save our common home’, it also sends a central message to policy makers that: international political climate action is more important now than ever.
In Chapter Five the Pope outlines the building blocks of the “Dialogue on the Environment in the International Community”. Climate change has to be seen in the context of global interdependence. Local and regional developments linked to climate change have a global effect and entail a responsibility towards those who are and will be most affected. Hence, solutions need to be multilateral and considered from a global perspective.
“Diplomacy”, according to the Pope, “takes on new importance in the work of developing international strategies which can anticipate serious problems affecting us all.” A determined international process built on the mutual respect of sovereignty is central to supplement action by local authorities.
This strong case for climate diplomacy can fall on fertile ground. Indeed, on the occasion of the second European Climate Diplomacy Day - the day before the Papal Encyclical was presented - the EU’s High Representative and Vice-President Federica Mogherini made a clear statement that: tackling climate change is both a national security as well as a moral imperative.
As the pressure for a new international climate agreement to be reached at the Paris COP 21 in December is high, the Pope’s Encyclical with its strong moral rationale can assist policy makers as an added, convincing narrative in making the case for decisive and timely action.
2019 has only just begun, but it is already hard to imagine that there will be other extreme weather events with disastrous consequences such as cyclone Idai happening again this year. In all likelihood, such events will continue to occur as 2019 rolls on. Idai is, once more, proof of how devastating and toxic the mix of climate change, extreme weather events and poverty can be: Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe – countries that rank low in human development but contribute very little to global greenhouse gas emissions – suffer from some of the worst impacts of climate change.
adelphi has relaunched its exhibition Environment, Conflict and Cooperation (ECC) Exhibition to illustrate how unprecedented environmental changes interact with social, political, and economic risks to exacerbate conflict. We invite you to explore our online exhibition and to learn more about urgent issues of our time: climate, energy, migration, extractives, food and water.
Climate security risks are, by all interpretations, a global threat. But when it comes to setting a political climate security agenda, a handful of countries stand out. In an interview with Climate Diplomacy, Michaela Spaeth, Director for Energy and Climate Policy at the German Federal Foreign Office, highlights some of Germany’s goals and challenges in forwarding the issue during its 2019-20 membership in the UN Security Council.
The Planetary Security Conference 2019, which concluded on 20 February, saw a number of workshops being held on the Sahel region and specifically Mali, one of the Conference’s three spotlight regions. These workshops examined the region’s climate-water-security risks as well as the #doable actions and solutions to address these issues.