In the run-up to Cop15, a synthesis report summarizes new insights from the congress "Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions" at the University of Copenhagen in March 2009. The urgency of a success at the coming negotiations is underlined by two recent studies of the International Institute for Sustainable Development that investigates climate related security threats in the Middle East and Africa.

   

The Directorate General of Development Cooperation (DGIS) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) are funding a new, recently launched, initiative: The "Conflict and Cooperation over Natural Resources in Developing Countries: a Knowledge, Research and Innovation Programme (CoCooN)". CoCooN will focus on evidence-based policy development, interventions and practices in the field of conflict and cooperation over natural resources aiming at adequately managing, resolving and learning from conflicts.

A number of German companies, among them Deutsche Bank, Siemens, and the energy companies RWE and E.on, recently agreed on forming a consortium with the plan of harnessing solar power in the deserts of Northern Africa to power Europe. Dr. Gerhard Knies, of the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation, investigated the potential of this energy source for security and stability in a 2007 forum article for ECC.

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, June 2009