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Is it Time to “Climatize” the UN Security Council?
![By Patrick Gruban (originally posted to Flickr as UN Security Council)[CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/climateandsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/united_nations_security_council.jpg?ssl=1)
By Mark Nevitt
Earlier this week, the UN Security Council failed to pass a draft resolution that would have defined climate change as a “threat to peace” within Article 39 of the UN Charter. Under international law, this critical threat to peace determination acts as a key that opens the door to supplemental legal authorities. But this resolution, co-sponsored by Ireland and Niger, was vetoed by Russia, one of the Council’s five permanent members (“P5”). By defining climate change as a threat to the peace, the Council could have sent an important signal that climate change is squarely within its ambit while setting the stage for follow-on action.
(more…)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…)Agenda 2021: Prospects for Climate Security and Other Strategic Risks at the UN Security Council
By Evan Barnard, Center for Climate and Security intern, with contributions from Andrea Rezzonico and William Beaver
The 2021 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) agenda promises to take on a range of issues central to the Council on Strategic Risks mission. This blog post provides recommendations for action by the UNSC, as well as an overview of the key topics we expect to see on the agenda. Key recommendations for the UNSC include:
- Climate: Establish a robust institutional home for climate and security at the UN – a Climate Security Crisis Watch Center.
- Bio: Invest in next-generation genome sequencing to guard against infectious diseases and biological warfare.
- Nukes: Aim to reduce nuclear weapon arsenals and increase openness for negotiation between nuclear nations.
- Intersection of risks: Rather than separating these risk factors into silos, consider their global security implications jointly over a range of timescales.
New Report: Action on Climate and Security Risks
Last week, a new report was released by the Planetary Security Initiative (PSI), a multi-organization consortium including the Center for Climate and Security, and coordinated by the Netherlands’ Clingendael Institute. The report, titled Action on Climate and Security Risks, reviews global progress made to date on addressing the security implications of a changing climate. The review includes both significant concerns, and reasons for optimism. From the announcement: