The Planetary Security Initiative (PSI) is a multi-year initiative run by a consortium of leading think tanks (including the Center for Climate and Security), and coordinated by Clingendael.  The goal of the PSI is to strengthen the knowledge-policy interface by consolidating a community of practice on planetary security – with climate and security issues serving as an important topic. A key to consolidating this community of practice are three core outputs.

Policy Briefs

The Center for Climate and Security, with the PSI Initiative team, will be producing a series of policy briefs on a number of climate and security topics.

• Brief 1: Why and how to use foresight tools to manage climate security risks, Fetzek, Mourad, Briggs, Lewis, The Center for Climate and Security, April 2017
• Brief 2: Action on Climate and Security Risks, Vivekananda, Fetzek, Mobjörk, Sawas and Wolfmaier, adelphi, The Center for Climate and Security, SIPRI, December 2017

Videos

Interview with Francesco Femia, Co-President of the Center for Climate and Security on “How climate change influence geopolitics” – December 2016, Planetary Security Initiative conference in the Hague.

Annual Conference

A central element of the PSI will be the “milestones” of the annual conferences organized in The Hague. As with the 2015 and 2016 conferences, the 2017 conference will be organized in the Peace Palace, which underlines the focus on how tackling planetary security questions is essential to furthering international cooperation, conflict prevention and sustainable security. In 2016, the Center for Climate and Security, as members of the PSO Coordinating Group, convened two working groups:

Working Group 8: Using Foresight Tools to Manage Systemic Risk
Working Group 12: Climate Risk Management for the Defence and Intelligence Communities

Strategic Consultations

The annual conferences will provide an opportunity for the community of practice on this topic to meet in person. In addition, the consortium will ensure that the PSI links to other networks and has the visibility that is necessary to link up and enlarge the community of practice. Furthermore, a the PSI will adopt a strong digital presence, serving to facilitate information to the general public, attract stakeholders, and increase thematic awareness.

Publications

The annual conferences are intended to be supported by two substantial reports, framing a broad theme in advance  of the actual conference and providing a “solution narrative” for policy makers. During the conference, twelve or more workshops will provide the basis for tailored policy briefs on the contemporary key topics individually selected for each conference. Besides the reports and policy briefs, the PSI anticipates a number of supportive publications in the form of op-eds, country studies, infographics, interviews, commentaries, interactive tools and more.

In 2015, the Center for Climate and Security, as members of the PSI Advisory Board and convenors of two working groups, contributed to the conference report released by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Planetary Security: Peace and Cooperation in Times of Climate Change  and Global Environmental Challenges.”

This included reports from:

Working Group 1: Analysis of Syria
Working Group 5: The World in 2050: A Far Future Scenario Workshop

Consortium Partners

More information
For more information on the Planetary Security Initiative, please visit the PSI website.