By Noah Fritzhand and Siena Cicarelli
As hundreds of world leaders, policymakers, advocates, and experts make their way to New York for the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and Climate Week, the stage will once again be set for discussions on some of the most pressing international issues, including climate security.
As 2024’s record-breaking heat, “extraordinary” hurricane season, and growing food security risks demonstrate, climate change is already impacting global livelihoods and security in profound ways. At the end of August, UN Secretary-General António Guterres released a study on the impacts of climate-change-induced loss and damage on global human rights, identifying the nexus between climate change, conflict, hunger, and mobility as a key threat to human rights and security. Critically, the report highlights the need for direct funding for disproportionately affected communities including in conflict and fragile settings – a challenging task for today’s development leaders and international financial institutions.
Conversations on these topics will build throughout the rest of 2024 ahead of the G20 and 29th Conference of the Parties (COP) in November. As a first step, at UNGA and Climate Week 2025, we recommend that the climate security community closely track these key events and topics:
1. The High-Level Meeting on Sea-Level Rise
For Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu, and others, there is no more pressing issue than sea-level rise. By 2050, NASA estimates that global sea levels will rise between 15 and 30 centimeters, posing grave security implications for life on many Pacific and low-lying islands. Not only is sea-level rise a threat to life and infrastructure, but also a threat to food and water security and indigenous cultures. Furthermore, for the United States, with a large strategic interest in the Indo-Pacific and forces stationed in the region, increasing environmental crises will likely require greater engagement of US forces and resources dedicated to humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR).
US-China competition for influence in the region forms a backdrop to these discussions. Sea-level rise is calling into question Pacific Islands maritime boundaries and exclusive economic zones, including control of critical fishing resources, as increasing ocean temperatures drive the migration of global fish stocks toward the poles and into highly contested waters. Some estimates suggest that in the next 7 years, 23% of all fish stocks will move, leading to climate-driven conflict hotspots in the Arctic, Gulf of Guinea, and Central Pacific. These changes will have significant impacts on the food and economic security of coastal countries as well as hard security concerns between neighbors. The US has supported Pacific Islands’ efforts to retain their existing maritime territory, preserve their statehood, and combat IUU fishing, as part of a broader diplomatic recognition of the climate change needs of these critical allies.
This high-level meeting on September 25 will include panels on data-driven risk assessments, coastal climate adaptation and finance, heritage, and the legal dimensions of sea-level rise, alongside a plenary session. Conversations around ocean security have expanded significantly over the past decade and will continue to increase in preparation for COP 29 (November 2024) in Baku, Azerbaijan, Our Ocean Conference (April 2025) in Busan, ROK, and the UN Ocean Conference (June 2025) in Nice, France. The question now is, will rhetoric on the world stage at UNGA, COP, and other gatherings lead to tangible action? At the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga last month, this was the very thing that Tonga’s Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni and other Pacific Island leaders were once again calling for– tangible results and outcomes. These island nations are facing what Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka described as a “polycrisis” of climate change, human security, transnational drug trafficking, and geopolitical competition, reinforcing and exacerbating one another.
Additional resources to consider:
- Ecological Sources of Coastal, National, and Global Security (CCS)
- Trip Report: Youth-Led Visions of a Climate-Secure Pacific (CCS)
- CCS Partnering with Virginia Tech on Minerva Grant to Study Population Mobility and Climate Change in the Indo-Pacific (Virginia Tech)
2. Climate Finance Discussions and Negotiations
Many countries on the frontlines of the severe impacts of climate change are already in a debt crisis. To make matters worse, between 2022 and 2023, net financial flows from international financial institutions to developing countries fell by about $40 billion. It is the same story for private financial flows. The lack of financial resources forces many of the most climate-vulnerable countries to make choices to cut spending on health, education, and other vital services, leading to compounding and cascading security risks. The short-term impacts of increasingly-frequent extreme weather events and the long-term impacts of drought, for example, have the potential to spur large-scale migration events and destabilize local or regional security. Without access to adequate climate finance, these countries will require substantial increases in foreign aid and humanitarian assistance in the near future. In Bangladesh for example, the decades-long Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund project has been able to drastically improve the country’s ability to manage disasters, in particular, floods and cyclones, reducing the need for displacement.
Discussions at UNGA are a critical moment ahead of COP29 where world leaders will adopt a new collective quantified goal to update the commitment of US$100 billion per year mobilized for developing countries, a number that was set in 2009. Some groups such as the Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance report that developing countries will need $1 trillion per year to meet climate and development goals. Gaps in global climate finance are widening and the clock is ticking faster for the public and private financial institutions to mobilize funding. In 2023, most private climate finance came in the form of debt, was concentrated domestically in the US, Western Europe, and other developed economies and mainly targeted mitigation efforts. In addition to expanding the insufficient 28% of private international finance going to emerging and developing economies (EMDEs), the private financial sector must diversify investments toward climate adaptation while exploring a much wider range of financial instruments such as debt-for-climate adaptation swaps. More funding all around from both private and public actors will help strengthen U.S. national and global security by building stability, increasing climate resilience, preventing forced migration flows, and strengthening relationships between allies.
Additional resources to consider:
- The Elephant in the Climate Room: Financing Sustainable Security and Supporting Future-Fit Systems (CCS)
- International Development and Climate Finance: The New Agenda (ODI)
- For national security, climate finance must be made ‘conflict-proof’ (CCS op-ed in The Hill)
- Friends Don’t Let Friends Succumb to Climate Change: Competing With China by Helping Our Partners and Allies Adapt (CCS op-ed in Just Security with Admiral Sam Locklear)
3. Summit of the Future
The Summit of the Future, taking place on 22-23 September, aims to reaffirm commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provide a forum to explore the “how” of international action – how does the international community collaborate better to achieve the goals set out by the Paris Agreement, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other commitments? How do we prepare for the challenges of the future?
The Summit is expected to deliver an action-oriented “Pact for the Future” that will be negotiated, and endorsed by countries during the Summit. The latest revision of the Pact released on July 17, 2024 includes key actions on climate security, sustainability, and climate finance. The actions include calls for the United Nations (UN) to further address the climate and security nexus in peace operations as well as “urgently implement” financial commitments to developing countries and conflict-affected countries in support of building climate adaptation and resilience. The UN is at a crossroads facing a perception crisis, and the Summit will be a good opportunity to see if trust in the multilateral space can be reset and rebuilt and to begin charting an actionable path toward achieving the SDGs.
Additional resources to consider: