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Kenyan Defense Cabinet Secretary: Climate Change a Threat to Security
According to Kenya’s NTV News, during a closing ceremony after a joint exercise between the Kenyan and Jordanian armed forces, Kenya’s Defense Cabinet Secretary, Raychelle Awour Omamo, identified climate change, environmental degradation and health security as “the major security threats emerging in Kenya today.” Cabinet Secretary Omamo stated: “These nontraditional security challenges continue to threaten the state and international peace.”
Gen. Middendorp and Bergema: How Climate Change Fuels Violent Extremism
In an article published yesterday on the anniversary of 9/11 by the IPI Global Observatory, General Tom Middendorp, Chair of the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS) and former Chief of Defence of the Netherlands, and Reinier Bergema of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, highlight the links between climate change, water insecurity, and violent extremism – particularly in “Western, Central, and Eastern Africa, and several countries in the Middle East.” The article is part of an article series that the IPI Global Observatory is publishing in advance of Climate Week in New York (watch this space for more). Click here for the full article.
African Union highlights security risks of climate change
In a press statement after the 864th meeting of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (which is the organization’s decision-making entity on conflict “prevention, management and resolution”), the PSC highlighted climate change and its effects on security as a significant issue for its member states. The statement focuses on climate change impacts on infrastructure, access to vital resources and the most vulnerable, as well as its exacerbating effects on forced displacement and existing tensions among communities, and called on its member states to advance “adaptation measures with a view to building resilience in the communities facing climate change.” Click here for the full statement.
AFRICOM Commander on Climate Change: Sahel Receding Almost a Mile Per Year
General Waldhauser before the Senate Armed Services Committee addresses climate change in the Sahel, March 13, 2018
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Marine General Thomas D. Walhauser, Commander of U.S. Africa Command (head of all U.S. forces on the African continent, barring Egypt), fielded a question from Sen. Gillibrand regarding the links between climate change, food insecurity and terrorism, and their impacts on AFRICOM’s mission and posture. General Waldhauser noted, in particular, the role of climate change in desertification, stating: “I would say from the climate perspective, is that we have seen the Sahel – the grasslands of the Sahel – recede and become desert almost a mile per year in the last decade or so. This has a significant impact on the herders who have to fight, if you will, for grasslands and water holes and the like.”
Below is General Waldhauser’s full statement on the subject: (more…)