“The security implications of climate change are too big a problem for us to fail in our policy response.” This perception, underlined by Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Møllers during a September conference in Copenhagen, is matched by recent discussions within the United Nations. As a result of these discussions the Secretary General of the United Nations published the final draft of his report on “Climate change and its possible security implications” in parallel to the Copenhagen conference. The UN report outlines once more the potential threat multipliers associated with a changing climate: apart from increasing threats to human security and development, it stresses the risks of domestic and international conflicts, as well as that of statelessness resulting from territory disappearance due to rising sea levels. During the conference in the Danish Foreign Ministry the security implications were concretely demonstrated: the first incidents of the upcoming climate crisis in the Middle East and Africa were illustrated, based on two regional risk assessments of climate change impacts prepared by the International Institute on Sustainable Development (IISD). Oli Brown, one of the co-authors, discussed how climate change is likely to impact water and food security, most likely leading to a further destabilization of the respective regions. The IISD reports moreover, outlined that these regions already are facing water scarcity and decreasing agricultural productivity.

Despite these gloomy prospects the Danish Foreign Minister underlined that there exist already approaches that may be helpful to limit the risks: He emphasized the importance of the international community’s leading role in fostering regional cooperation, especially building on ongoing initiatives to strengthen the regional security architecture. Mr. Møllers also referred to organisations like the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union as important examples in peace building and conflict prevention. In addition, the discussions in Copenhagen were inspired by the hope that a strong political will – during the upcoming climate conference held in the same place – help minimize some of the risks outlined by experts and policy makers. However, in the light of the widely perceived climate-security links, the focus on timely adaptation interventions seems to be more than appropriate – or as Geoff Dabelko, director of the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, outlined in his recent editorial comment for the Climatic Change journal: “Planning for climate change [is] the security community’s precautionary principle”. (Dennis Taenzler)

For more information on the conference “Climate Change and International Security” at the 18th September in the Danish Foreign Ministry, please see http://www.um.dk/nr/exeres/d27a966c-f30c-4760-8d2a-85b1c53c55db

The Secretary General’s report “Climate change and its possible security implications” is available at http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/64/350

To access the editorial comment by Geoff Dabelko to the Climatic Change journal, please see here and also visit his blog: http://newsecuritybeat.blogspot.com/

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, October 2009