The policy brief discusses the multi-faceted character of climate risks and the challenges that occur when this is addressed in practice.
The risks caused by climate change can differ per stakeholder and geographical location and have knock-on effects on food and water security inter alia. This has the potential to increase political tensions and can lead to instability, conflicts and eventually armed conflict. The brief argues that addressing the multi-faceted character of climate risk means policies and development programmes must bring together different disciplines, time horizons and scales.
However, such an integration is complex and in need of a narrative and concepts that span the different boundaries and disciplines. This allows climate risks to be framed as a safety concern and will help to secure more financial instruments which match the integration process. In addition, risk assessment teams and policy makers are learning to work and think across disciplines and engage with different aspects of climate risks. Policies should be subject to stress tests to prepare and identify possible consequences of new situations of insecurity. Once a policy is implemented, monitoring is important to assess its impact in practice.
A more elaborate argumentation and explanation can be found in the policy brief itself.