New report on the UN Security Council’s work on climate security published
This is a cross-post from the Planetary Security Initiative
In the past 18 months, the emergence of climate security as a mainstreamed and core risk for national governments and IGOs has accelerated. In particular, the UN Security Council (UNSC) is becoming more cognizant of climate change being a core security risk that should be under the remit of the organ and subsequently integrated into peacekeeping considerations and mission deployments.
A new report just published by “Security Council Report” is a first comprehensive analysis on the centrality and action of the UNSC, commissioned by the member states of the ‘Group of Friends on Climate and Security’. It seems to fill the void of no official UNSC report existing yet on the topic. The overarching message is that the issue is becoming increasingly talked about and embedded within the UN, but that disagreements over climate change’s impacts on security and whether it should be dealt with by a security organ persist. The Security Council itself has seen 2 debates hosted on climate security in 2020 and 2021 respectively and the establishment of an Informal Expert Group to push for greater focus on the UNSC attention on climate security.
(more…)New Online Course on Climate Change & National Security
The Center for Climate and Security is pleased to partner with The Conservation Coalition‘s Market Environmentalism Academy on the launch of a new online course on climate change and national security, featuring a video (below) with our advisory board member, General Ronald Keys, US Air Force (Ret).
The short 14 lesson course provides an overview of the climate change-national security nexus, and has modules on clean energy competition as well as extreme weather impacts.
You can sign up for the course and watch the entire video with Gen. Keys here.
Central American Climate Migration is a Human Security Crisis
By Amali Tower
In the pursuit of addressing the ‘root causes’ of migration from Central America to the U.S. southern border, the United States is motivated by a foreign policy built on seeking to improve conditions in Central America countries. However, this policy fails to fully grasp the extreme conditions that now mark contexts of forced displacement.
The Central American Integration System (SICA) — the economic and political organization of Central American states — has expressed the need to approach forced migration through a human security and development lens, rather than a traditional hard security one, and through coordinated regional responses. SICA identifies the structural causes of migration as poverty and inequality, insufficient growth, high demographic growth in cities – with rural areas lagging, high levels of violence, a wage gap between the region and the United States, family reunification needs in the United States, and vulnerability to climate change. SICA notes that Guatemala and El Salvador, and at times Nicaragua, are among the 15 countries in the world most exposed to disasters.
(more…)Converging Climate Risks: Government, Military, and Business at NATO 2030
By Elsa Barron and Lily Feldman
There are few challenges more “transatlantic” in nature than the climate crisis. No single nation can fix the issue at hand, yet through strong partnerships, hopefully the worst effects of climate change can be managed to help avert catastrophe. At the NATO 2030 Brussels Forum, taking place on the opening day of the NATO Summit, partnerships around climate security were a leading topic of discussion. The panel, “Operating in Times of Climate Change,” featured experts Congressman Ted Deutch (D-CA), Marsden Hanna, Head of Sustainability and Climate Policy at Google, and Sherri Goodman, Chair of the Board of the Council on Strategic Risks and Senior Strategist at the Center for Climate and Security. The panel, moderated by Janini Vivekanada of Adelphi, addressed major climate risks and opportunities at the intersection of government, security, and business interests, exploring opportunities to expand collaboration around and commitments towards climate action.
(more…)
Featured Report
Featured Project
