US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shocked the Arctic Council on Monday, with strong words for China, Russia and Canada – in a forum usually reserved for cooperation and relative goodwill. For the first time in its history, no joint declaration could be agreed. While the US position on climate change was central to the final disagreement, recent events show there are deeper roots to the geopolitical tension that is increasingly defining Arctic diplomacy.

In September the United Kingdom will take on co-leadership on resilience and adaptation at the UN Climate Action Summit. They also submitted a bid to host COP26 in 2020 and pledged £5.8 billion on climate finance between 2016 and 2020 exhibiting an increasing national commitment to tackle climate change. Yesterday UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt spoke in Nigeria as part of a 5 day Africa trip and addressed among others the role of climate change in instability and conflict

On the 29th April, the 8517th meeting of the UN Security Council took place. Discussing the Situation in the Middle East (the question of Palestine) EcoPeace Middle East briefed the delegates on the climate security situation in the region. The Jordanian Director of EcoPeace, Yana Abu Taleb, used ‘hope’ to describe the experience in New York –a word rarely heard in the Security Council, as a journalist pointed out.

On the 2nd April 2019 Sigrid Kaag, Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, French Secretary of State to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, participated in the High-level event "Food and agriculture in times of crisis" of the Global Network against Food Crises in Brussels. In the past three years hunger has been on the rise after decades of decline. With almost a billion people suffering from hunger, the Global Report on Food Crises, launched early April 2019 highlights conflicts and climate change effects as major factors.

In March the the fourth UN Environment Assembly took place in Nairobi, Kenya. At the same time the sixth edition of UN Environment’s Global Environment Outlook (GEO6) was published under the theme “healthy planet, healthy people”. GEO6 assesses scientific research, analyses environmental policies, and aims to help policymakers and the public identify priority actions to achieve sustainable development. In a blog published by the Conflict and Environment Observatory, Doug Weir and Leonie Nimmo analyze the report specifically focusing on the nexus between conflict and the environment.

In recent years, the centre of Mali has been at the heart of a great deal of concern. The latest killings in Ogossagou, a Fulani village in the district of Bankass in the Mopti region, in which close to 160 people lost their lives on 23 March 2019, were condemned by the entire international community. The victims were not only Fulani families, but also Dogon civilians. In the aftermath of the violence, other attacks took place on a smaller scale, targeting several other civilians in the region.

Depuis quelques années maintenant, le centre du Mali est au cœur de toutes les attentions. Les dernières tueries d’Ogossagou, un village peulh du cercle de Bankass, dans la région de Mopti, où près de 160 personnes, ont perdu la vie, le 23 mars 2019, ont été condamnées par toute la communauté internationale. Ce ne sont pas seulement des familles peulhs, mais aussi des civils dogons, car il existe aussi un village dogon du même nom, qui ont été tués. Au lendemain des violences, d’autres attaques de moindre envergure ont eu lieu et ciblant plusieurs autres civils de la région.

On the 14th - 16th May, 2019, the 4th biannual European Conference of Defence and the Environment (ECDE) one of Europe's most relevant conferences on the environmental impacts of military operations, military training and management of environmentally hazardous substances, will take place in the Swedish Defence University at Försvarshögskolan, Stockholm