From 22-24 March, the UN 2023 Water Conference will be co-hosted by The Netherlands and Tajikistan in New York. It aims to create a Water Action Agenda.

Four of the 10 countries most affected by climate change in the past 20 years are in Southeast Asia. As such, climate change poses a profound threat to populations across the region, spanning traditional security dimensions as well as non-traditional aspects such as food, water and health security. In particular, marginalised groups such as women, the disabled, rural populations and refugees are disproportionately affected by climate-induced security threats and yet have limited capacities to adapt to these changes.

Violent conflict and state oppression in Myanmar demonstrates the importance of placing conflict analysis and people-centred approaches at the centre of international programming on climate change and environmental protection.

In the coming decades, Sweden will face increasing security risks due to climate change. These risks stem primarily from climate hazards outside Sweden’s borders, though warming temperatures and increasingly erratic and intense precipitation may strain the country’s domestic military, energy, and economic infrastructure.

Energy security and climate change intersect foreign policy at the juncture of national security. India and China, as the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), have committed to global climate change mitigation by announcing a substantial upscaling of renewable energy (RE) in their total energy mix. China, however, continues to dominate the production chains for rare earths, minerals like lithium and cobalt, and low-cost RE technologies.

Russia’s re-invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has had immediate and ongoing effects for Arctic security and cooperative governance at both a regional and international level. The region is impacted by the increased sanctions, the withdrawal of Western companies from Russia, the Western disconnect from energy dependencies, and has also witnessed an increase in hybrid security incidents.  In addition, climate change continues at to change the environment at a staggering pace in the north.

Afghanistan is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, with more frequent extreme weather events and temperatures that are increasing faster than the global average. These factors, coupled with the legacy of four decades of war, a complex humanitarian emergency and an economic crisis since the Taliban’s takeover of the government in August 2021, have heightened the vulnerability of the Afghan population.

On February 14, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) convened an open-debate to discuss the implications of sea-level rise for international peace and security.

The Council on Foreign Relations has recently released a podcast discussing the implications that climate change has for the Horn of Africa. James Lindsay and Michelle Gavin discuss the implications that climate change has in destabilising the region by exacerbating existing vulnerabilities such as food insecurity and civil unrest.