Joe Thwaites

Although claims about climate/conflict links remain contested, concerns that climate change will affect peace and security have gained traction in academic, activist, and policy circles. One set of pressures for responsive action has centered on the UN Security Council, which has held several often-contentious debates on the topic. Whether the Council should address climate change is a highly politicized question, tied to controversies about the Council’s mandate, membership reform, and the appropriate division of labor in the UN system. Lost in this political debate has been a more fundamental question—what exactly could the Council do? We examine six specific proposals for Council action culled from the academic and policy literature and the public positions of member states. These include incorporating climate risks into peacekeeping operations, developing an early-warning system, managing the threat to small-island states, engaging in preventive diplomacy, addressing climate refugees, and embracing a climate-related analogy to the norm of a responsibility to protect. For each proposal, our analysis—which is based on interviews conducted at the UN, archival research, and case histories of past instances of adapting the Council’s focus to new challenges—examines what it would mean and require for the Council to act. We also identify a series of measures that constitute a “pragmatic transformative” agenda. These steps recognize the poor fit between the climate challenge and the Council as it is currently constituted, but also the potential to use climate as part of a larger transformation toward the better Council the world needs.

The effects of climate change will increasingly shape our security in the coming years. The environment is now in a state of flux, posing significant challenges to how societies function. This may have serious economic, social and political consequences for entire regions. adelphi and its partners formed an alliance with the German Federal Foreign Office and have played a central role in the process of analysing the international debates on climate diplomacy and security, while developing key narratives, contributing to awareness raising and capacity building efforts, and supporting international and regional dialogues on this topic around the world. In this publication, we seek to illustrate the rationale and results of adelphi’s engagement in climate diplomacy activities – efforts undertaken to help foster a response to climate change that is commensurate with its status as one of the key foreign policy challenges of the 21st century.

This paper examines Pakistan’s changing discourse on climate change and security across the three debates the United Nations Security Council has held on the subject. Examining Pakistan’s shift—from hostility discussing the subject in 2007 to co-hosting an informal meeting on it with the United Kingdom in 2013—two key factors are identified for the change in position. These two positions: increased awareness of the potential extreme effects of climate change due to a number of domestic natural disasters and Pakistan’s engagement in climate diplomacy with other governments. Combined, these have helped Pakistan recognize the merits of bringing the issue of climate change before the Council and assuage legitimate fears held by many developing countries about Council overreach and domination. The decision represents a political calculation in light of the stark gap between the international community’s pledged greenhouse gas emissions reductions and what is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. Some of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, recognizing the scale of the threat that such climate change would pose, have broken from the formal position of the G77 group and advanced climate policy in alternative forums, using unconventional framings. By partnering with a developed country, Pakistan appears to be attempting to bridge the divide between countries over whether and how the Security Council can contribute to addressing climate change.

Melting glaciers in the Himalayas or the Andes, more frequent storms in the Caribbean or Oceania, changing weather patterns in Africa or the Middle East: the challenges posed by climate change are enormous. The repercussions raise geopolitical questions, have implications for livelihoods and development, and require a strategic response to ensure sustainable development.

Since the start of the climate diplomacy initiative to address these challenges, hundreds of decision-makers and experts as well as thousands of citizens have participated in regional roundtables from Bogotá to New Delhi, executive briefings and consultations from Wellington to Port of Spain, and events at climate conferences from Durban to Doha. The objectives at the core of these activities are to share viewpoints, jointly identify priorities and develop common strategies to address climate security challenges.

The new booklet on climate diplomacy, building upon the 2012 edition, documents this ambitious political process and progress in Germany to engage stakeholders, partner countries and regional organisations. It also highlights the achievements and key messages distilled from the joint initiative on climate diplomacy by the German Federal Foreign Office and adelphi.

Climate change has brought about a convergence of the two dominant epistemological communities in the field of environmental security. Comparing these communities, this presentation surveys efforts to galvanize international action on climate by bringing discussion before the UN Security Council.