At UN Security Council Debate, Climate Emergency ‘a Danger to Peace’

Daryan Shamkhali via UNSPLASH

At Friday’s open debate on climate and security, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, Miroslav Jenča said the climate emergency is exacerbating existing risk to international peace and security while creating new ones, calling on security actors to play a role in implementing the Paris Agreement. While impacts of climate change varied across regions, he said fragile and conflict-affected countries were most exposed and least able to cope with the effects, noting that seven of the 10 most vulnerable and least equipped, were supported by a UN peacekeeping operation or special political mission within its borders. He said failure to act on the growing impacts of climate change would undermine existing conflict prevention, peacemaking and peacebuilding work, while also trapping vulnerable countries in a vicious cycle of climate disaster and conflict. 

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates, (presumably speaking on behalf of regional groups, likely the Middle East or regional bloc) suggested a new approach, calling on the Security Council to work in partnership with development and humanitarian actors to curtail the likelihood of conflict in climate-vulnerable countries. 

The UAE said the link between climate change and security is now well-recognized in ample evidence around the world of how droughts, extreme weather, desertification and others impacts, including in the Middle East, lead to social unrest, competition over natural resources and displacement, all of which contribute significantly to conflict and violence. 

They went even further to suggest the Security Council operationalize the climate-security nexus within its scope of work with targeted trainings for UN staff in conflict settings where climate change impacts are prevalent. 

Vietnam, a member of the Security Council through 2021 with climate change as a policy priority, reminded members that sea level rise and saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta are threats to Vietnam’s sustainable development. 

Vietnam urged the Security Council to address the root causes of conflicts such as poverty, injustice, militarism and disregard for international law, calling for security analysis to now also include considerations of climate change impacts. (UN News, Emirates News Agency, Nhan Dan)

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Pacific Climate Expert Briefed UN Security Council

David Hoefler via UNSPLASH

This morning, Niue’s Coral Pasisi, a Pacific representative of the Climate Security Expert Network briefed the UN Security Council on climate issues facing the Pacific, after what she said was a decade of lobbying efforts. Her presentation is part of a ministerial-level open debate with a focus to better understand how climate security issues affect different regions. 

Along with Pasisi, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres addressed the Security Council, along with a senior official from the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) and Colonel Mahamadou Magai of Niger who was expected to focus on the impacts of climate change on food security and conflict in the Sahel, according to the publication What’s In Blue, from the think tank Security Council Report, a publication and NGO we once worked with. 

 Pasisi says there are “a great many ways we can connect the impacts of climate change to undermining peace and security, the stability of communities, economies and countries in the region.”

Her goal was to focus the Security Council on climate fragility impacts that warrants a security response of intervention before issues turn into conflict, citing maritime boundaries in the Pacific, impacts around the Blue Economy, global competition for fisheries and related food insecurity in fisheries trade, and displacement of the region’s populations. 

Pasisi says people are already being displaced internally and across borders as a result of climate change, with forced displacements occurring within often highly contested land, presenting an additional challenge, especially since there are no existing legal or policy arrangements to protect resources or maritime jurisdictions. (RNZ)

What’s In Blue reported that Germany, president of the Security Council this month, co-sponsored the meeting with nine other Council members. In addition to Council members, several UN member states addressed the Council, representing groups such as the: Alliance of Small Island States, the Nordic Group, Pacific Small Island Developing States, Group of Friends on Climate and Security and Pacific Island Forum. A representative from the EU and Kenya and Ireland, future Council members in 2021-2022 also addressed the Council. 

What’s In Blue shared the following questions that were to be examined in a concept note shared amongst Council members ahead of the debate:  

• How can the Council obtain authoritative information on the impact of climate-related security risks in conflict environments?

• What tools, partnerships and early warning capabilities would support the timely assessment of and response to climate-related security risks to prevent the escalation of conflicts?

• How can UN in-country resources (including peace operations and special political missions) be enabled to better collect, analyze and report on relevant information in countries and regions in a gender-sensitive manner?

• Which current tools can the Council use to address the security implications of climate change and how could these be enhanced to respond appropriately to climate-related security risks?

• How can the Council enhance its operational readiness to address such risks?

Climate security remains a controversial topic for the UN Security Council to engage, with China, Russia and the US raising a range of issues that climate change is fundamentally a sustainable development issue, opposing expansion of climate-security language and insistence that other UN agencies are better suited to address the topic. 

However, most members seem to support integration of climate-related security risks to examine factors such as drought, food security, water scarcity, desertification as examples that can exacerbate conflict and further support the development of “synergies among the Council and other UN entities in addressing climate-security challenges.”

What’s in Blue reports these countries desire the Council pursue a resolution on climate-security issues, and Germany had drafted a resolution in collaboration with nine other members on June 20, but the negotiations were suspended in early July, as the “political environment in the Council prevented them from pursuing a resolution at the current time.”

Today’s meeting was the Security Council’s fifth thematic debate on climate-security issues. The Council has addressed security impacts related to climate change in 12 resolutions since 2015. (What’s In Blue)

One of these resolutions was focused on climate change impacts in the Lake Chad Basin, which we addressed in our Field Report, “Shrinking Options: The Nexus Between Climate Change, Displacement and Security in the Lake Chad Basin.” Following a trip to the Lake Chad Basin in March 2017, the UN Security Council, in Resolution 2349, recognized the “adverse effects of climate change and ecological changes among other factors on the stability of the region, including through water scarcity, drought, desertification, land degradation, and food insecurity.”

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For more on this, read our report

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Citing Climate Change, Providence City Council Commits to Becoming Anti-Racist

Michael Denning via UNSPLASH

Two Councilmembers introduced a Resolution last week that prioritizes Providence city funds in public support structures in accordance with the “Just Providence Framework and the city’s “Climate Justice Plan.” Recognizing that climate change impacts marginalized communities disproportionately, the Office of Sustainability in partnership with the Racial and Environmental Justice Committee have pledged to create a plan to address the interconnectedness of public health, racism, climate and environmental sustainability. The two offices will work with communities to make sure that plans measure the intersection of race and class as an indicator in environmental justice assessments. 

Based on what we see here, we at Climate Refugees think this is exactly the necessary bold, accountable and out-of-the-box thinking that underscores a movement.

““We cannot build a just and equitable society without addressing the impacts of climate change on our most vulnerable community members…“”

— Councilmember Nirva LaFortune

The Resolution went even further to call out the many ways throughout history that the city had failed its residents, including slavery. One Councilmember called the resolution a “movement seeking to rectify policies and structures that failed to acknowledge Black, indigenous and communities of color in climate and other environmental-related initiatives. It is up to all of us to work together to make sustainability and environmental justice a guiding principle in addressing climate change.”

The resolution listed specific times when the city had failed residents of color:

• The institution of slavery being Providence’s principal source of income;

• The displacement of indigenous peoples through violence and lies;

• The race riots of Hardscrabble and Snow Town leading to the formation of the Providence Police Department;

• The displacement of Black and Indigenous communities to build industrial sites, highways, and roads;

• The defunding of schools whose students are majority Black, Latinx, and Southeast Asian;

• The over-policing of Black, Indigenous, and People of color neighborhoods;

• The tradition of placing toxic sites in and near Black, Indigenous, people of color neighborhoods;

The resolution commits the City to three ideas:

• Transforming the City into an anti-racist institution by following the “Continuum on Becoming an Anti-Racist Multicultural Organization” by continuing to support and invest in structures, programs, policies that align with the Just Providence Framework and Climate Justice Plan;

• Supporting the Office of Sustainability in the FY21 budget to improve the lives of Providence’s BIPOC communities in order to mitigate long-term climate threats and reduce the loss of life with solutions that result in clean air and water, climate-resilient low-income housing, community health, environmental justice, youth programs, and economic justice; and

• Following the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership outlined in the Climate Justice plan and moving towards collaborative governance decision-making processes that center those who are most impacted by the current health, environment, and economic crises.

We’d like to applaud Providence on its courageous and visionary leadership and hope other cities, in the US and globally, will be inspired to follow suit to recognize and respond to the many interconnected ways in which climate change will cut deeply across sectors and marginalized people. (Uprise RI)

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Facing the Double Burden of Climate Change and Conflict

Patrick Schneider via UNSPLASH

In its new report, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) finds people living in conflict zones are adversely affected by climate change. Of the 20 countries most vulnerable to climate change, 12 are currently at war. 

Conflict-affected communities who already face extreme stress now face further hardships by climate shocks, and state institutions, essential social services, social cohesion and even freedom of movement, which can help offset impacts to livelihood, are now profoundly disturbed by conflict.

In turn, conflict often has impacts on the natural environment as well via direct attacks or damage through warfare, which contaminate water, soil, land and air. 

The International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warns that by 2050, 200 million people could be humanitarian aid dependent every year, which is double the current number. It’s clear the international community fails to meet that need now, strained further by the global pandemic and rising poverty, and no stretch of the imagination is needed to envision what the growing impacts of climate change could yield. 

They rightly highlight the significant climate finance gap between stable and fragile countries, where at present, the bulk of capital is used to support efforts to reduce carbon emissions, which is essential, but simultaneous action is needed to help communities adapt to climate change.

From Mali to Iraq, civilians in conflict zones are doubly impacted by climate extremes. Despite being the most impacted and having the least contribution to global warming, communities hardest hit are the most neglected by global climate action. ICRC urges humanitarian actors and beyond in the international community to make significant systemic and structural changes, increase political will, good governance, investment, technical knowledge and calls for a shift in mindsets to offset climate risks and protect people from a situation far worse to come. (Reuters)

For more on the nexus between climate change, conflict and displacement, read our field report from the Lake Chad Basin.

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Climate Change and Race — Connections are Being Drawn

Vlad Tchompalov/UNSPLASH

In the wake of the current global uprising on racism, connections are being drawn between climate change and race. As is well-understood by some working in this space, climate change is an everyday reality for many developing countries, marginalized and disenfranchised people, many of whom are people of color. However, that link between climate change and race is now amplified to emphasize how little that is part of the story. 

For example, this writer points out that Australia’s wildfires that began last June and continued well into March this year, while generating tons of global outrage, contained very little media coverage of its impacts on Indigenous Australians, some of whom lost their homes and all possessions in the fires, which also put their cultural and sacred sites at risk. 

The fact that the US, UK and Australia dump their waste on developing countries like Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia, paying scant attention to the hazards they create in the process for the populations that live there. 

Similarly, she rightly calls out extractive industries killing of Indigenous leaders in the Amazon under Brazil’s Bolsonaro Administration. While the US and Canada authorize more extractive industries to build oil pipelines, such as Dakota and Keystone XL, through indigenous lands, while posing threats to the health and food sovereignty of Indigenous communities. 

She highlights the EPA report in March, which revealed Black communities in the US are three times more likely to die from exposure to pollution than white communities, something supported again this week, by another writer who makes the link between the EPA report and the heightened pregnancy risks for Black women, which makes climate change especially worrisome then for women of color. 

As both writers correctly posit, there are elements of race that cannot continue to be overlooked in the climate change discussion. Chief among them that the continued reliance on fossil fuels not only accelerates climate change and worsens air quality, but we now also know, adversely and disproportionately impacts communities of color. (Vogue & Reuters)

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