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Climate Change, Peace and Security Training

Climate change increases conflict risks and makes peacekeeping an even more demanding endeavour. Building peace in this context means addressing the root climate and environmental causes of tensions, meeting the basic needs for life (water, food, shelter), strengthening governance and ensuring socially inclusive climate action. This underlines the increasing need to address climate change, fragility and conflict risks together in an integrated and comprehensive manner. Against this backdrop, the Slovenia-based Peace Operations Training Centre (POTC) has developed a comprehensive training programme to address the needs of deployed or soon-to-be-deployed personnel.

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The training programme takes into account the host countries’ specifics including (1) the missions’ and operations' mitigation strategies and (2) the methodologies for addressing the climate and environmental causes of conflict in host countries.

The first training course took place in April 2023 and was attended by 33 participants from 25 countries. Trainings will take place on an annual basis.

Target group: Police, military and civilian personnel, deployed or soon-to-be-deployed to international missions and operations, occupying positions dealing with community outreach, security sector reform, protection of civilians, conflict prevention and conflict management, establishing good governance, capacity building and reconstruction. The training is tailored to mission personnel dealing with host country counterparts (personnel providing security and climate advisers excluded).

Learning objectives:

1. Provide participants with a fundamental understanding of the peacebuilding, climate and security nexus and the impact of climate change on security, including for vulnerable social groups (women, youth, indigenous peoples, etc.), as well as address the need for strengthening governance and socially inclusive climate action.

2. Provide participants with a fundamental understanding of the international legal framework regarding climate change and how it affects global peacebuilding and peacekeeping efforts.

3. Provide participants with a fundamental understanding of the pivotal role of water infrastructure and access to water as essential enablers for climate security.

4. Provide participants with a fundamental understanding of the environmental issues affecting different international missions and operations with examples from the field.

5. Provide participants with an understanding of the climate advisor’s role in the mission, their mandate and capabilities.

6. Provide participants with a fundamental understanding of adaptation and mitigation approaches of international missions and operations.

Contact person and email:

Samo Selimović: samo.selimovic@cep.si

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Supported by Slovenia

Type: Practice, Dialogue/advocacy, Process

Relevant action areas: 1. Aligning ambition and action; 3. Climate security risk-informed resilience and adaptation; 4. Climate security risk-informed peace; 5. Knowledge & experience sharing

Location of project: Mengeš, Slovenia

Duration: 2023 - ongoing

Partners: Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia

Key activities: empowering participants with knowledge and understanding regarding the peacebuilding, climate and security nexus through lectures, discussions, case studies, and group and individual work