Eight of the ten countries hosting the most multilateral peace operations personnel in 2018 are located in areas highly exposed to climate change. As such, climate change is not just an issue of human security—it is transforming the entire security landscape. Nonetheless, international efforts to build and maintain peace are not yet taking these emerging challenges systematically into account.

On 19 June, 2019, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Jordan Red Crescent Society (JRCS) co-hosted a policy roundtable on climate change, conflict and resilience in Amman Jordan, with organizational support by the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (RCClimate) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

Jordan, Palestine and Israel are strongly divided on political and religious issues, however when it comes to climate risks, they have equal problems and they aim to solve this together. Since 2018 the call for action on climate change worldwide increased to a significant level. In the Middle East the most visual climate risks are related to water: the lower Jordan River and the Dead Sea are shared environmental heritages of the three countries, but the water level is shrinking to alarmingly low levels.

At the inaugural London Climate Action Week from 1-8 July, climate security will once again be high on the agenda. The Dutch Embassy in the UK, in partnership with the Planetary Security Initiative and E3G, will host leading defense, development and diplomacy actors alongside journalists, students, and the general public via live stream. In a critical year for climate action – with further direct action almost as certain as the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit in September – the event is an opportunity to share how far the British and Dutch climate resilience and security agendas have advanced, and how much further there is to go, together.

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.

Between 9 – 18 July the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development will convene under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), to review in-depth the progress of six Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Three of them, namely Climate Action (SDG13) and Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (SDG16) and Partnership for the Goals (SDG17) were assessed in relation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the OSCE Security Day on 4 June in the United Nations Vienna Headquarters

The first publication of a knowledge partnership between SIPRI and the World Food Programme (WFP) assesses the contribution of WFP to the improvement of the prospects for peace, based on four field research-based case studies in El Salvador, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, and Mali. Strong contributions were found in livelihood investments, in building good links between the state and citizens, in natural resource management and in community-based participatory approaches, areas that also show a close link to climate change. The report “The World Food Programme’s Contribution to Improving the Prospects for Peace” further explored whether WFP’s programming potentially exacerbates conflict or increases the risk of conflict.

The scan aims to help policy-makers, practitioners and academics who are short on time get to grips with the range of literature, discourse and social media coverage of the intersection of resilience, climate change, conflict and security. It has assessed over 350 pieces of literature and summarises 146. It intentionally emphasises academic journals, because these remain inaccessible to many, including those who take critical policy and funding decisions on how to prevent and respond to new manifestations of complex risk.

Tokyo, Japan, May 30, 2019 – Japan’s economic competitiveness is threatened by a heavy reliance on imports from countries that face multiple climate change-exacerbated security risks, and Japan can take lessons from the U.S. military’s vulnerabilities to climatic changes, according to two new Japan Series reports (here and here) from experts at The Center for Climate and Security, a think tank in Washington DC with a team and Advisory Board of senior military and security leaders. The reports come ahead of Japan’s hosting of two G20 ministerial meetings on Trade and Digital Economy (June 8-9) and Energy Transitions for Global Environment for Sustainable Growth (June 15-16)