On 4 June German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas hosted seven foreign ministers, 19 ambassadors, several other ministers and more than 200 experts and civil society representatives at the Berlin Climate and Security Conference. The Climate Security Nexus was the central theme discussed with Maas proclaiming climate action as Germanys new foreign policy imperative, as the security implications of its effects can already be seen across the globe. The current Security Council member aims to play a leading role in the fight against climate risks to peace and stability. A fight, that according to former US state secretary John Kerry, one of the keynote speakers at the BCSC, is not taken serious enough by governments at the international level.
In their article “Climate protection as a new foreign policy imperative” Heiko Maas and professors Ottmar Edenhofer and Johan Rockström of the co-hosting Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research addressed the discrepancy between the frequently highlighted climate crisis as a policy priority and the low actual political action. In recent years research has shown, that the security implications of climate change are serious with entire regions stability at risk. Water-scarcity, droughts, displacement, and threatened livelihoods are just a few aspects on a long list of threats and consequences. Just like the Planetary Security Conference #Doable in February, the BCSC brought together leading figures from governments, international organisations, the scientific community, the private sector and civil society, and provided a platform to discuss new instruments of action to tackle the growing risks of climate change to peace and security.
After working towards a presidential statement in 2011, where the UN Security Council “expresses its concern that possible adverse effects of climate change may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing threats to international peace and security,” it came as a strong statement of intent when Germany stated the link between climate change and security policy as the top priority for its current two-year term (2019-2020) as a UN Security Council elected member. This builds on the UN Group of Friends on Climate and Security Germany established with Nauru in August 2018 (and on the previous efforts of Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, the UK, Ukraine and Caribbean Small Island Developing States).
Maas emphasized, that Germany wants to adapt the structure of the UN Security Council’s work as it is currently merely dealing with crises, conflicts and wars as they occur instead of exploring mechanisms that enable prevention and adaptation at an earlier stage. In a Call for Action, launched at the conference, the signatories demand periodic Global Risk and Foresight Assessment, more United Nations (UN) experts on climate and security in affected regions, and an improved alignment of climate policy with sustainable development, security and peacebuilding in all UN programmes.
Another important message was given by representatives of vulnerable countries like foreign minister of Ghana Shirley Botchway who demanded a seat on the table for African countries in the climate security discussion that they hardly caused but extensively feel. Baron Divavesi Waqa, President of the Pacific island state Nauru, warned that climate security is already considered as too controversial to be featured at UN Secretary General António Guterres’ climate action summit in September, an event that is considered of immense importance to the cause by experts working on the climate security nexus.
Photocredit: Adelphi/ Jan Rottler