With the rapid rate of climate change and its likely implications for global security, the current world order will have to adapt – and adapt quickly. The difference between today and major global disruptions of the past is that though the risks are unprecedented, our foresight is unprecedented as well. This lays the foundation for a Responsibility to Prepare and Prevent (R2P2), a framework for managing the climate-security risks, which this report seeks to address.

Rather than acting as direct drivers of conflict, climate change and variability are seen as intermediary sources of risk, or ‘threat multipliers’. This is because they interact with existing socioeconomic and environmental conditions to increase livelihood insecurity and the probability of conflict in certain situations. In this light, this report explores the complex and tangled links between climate variability and change and the proliferation of armed networks operating in northern Niger.

There is increasing evidence that climate change is undermining livelihoods, food and water security in rural and urban areas around the world, thereby acting as a “threat multiplier” in fragile and conflict-prone situations. In light of this, the Berlin Climate and Security Conference, which took place at the German Federal Foreign Office on 4 June 2019, aimed at increasing the momentum for decisive action to address climate-related drivers of conflict.

The challenges facing the international community are growing while the willingness to cooperate seems to be waning and unilateral action at times gets in the way of joint solutions. Foreign policy can pave the way for transformative change by actively supporting a major achievement of multilateralism: the 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals have a common aim: more peace and justice worldwide. But what exactly is the role of foreign policy in the global sustainability architecture? What are the fields of engagement and tools of a new "Diplomacy for Sustainability"?