Blog: Securing a climate for peace, grounded in local reality

By Juliane Schillinger, Climate Centre, Netherlands

The Berlin Climate and Security Conference 2024 (photo), organized last week by the German Federal Foreign Office and adelphi (a leading think tank on climate, environment and development), brought together politicians, experts on climate security, international organizations and other agencies to discuss interactions between climate and conflict. It came at a pivotal moment ahead of COP 29 in Baku next month.

“Climate security” is defined by the UN as the impacts of climate change on peace and security, especially in areas that are already fragile or affected by conflict. Challenges for affected populations have grown significantly in the past few years, as climate-related events increasingly inflict disproportionate impacts on such areas.

Climate impacts and insecurity are also driving displacement, which places people at additional risk and exacerbates local tensions.

BCSC sessions highlighted the key role of livelihoods and food: from Haiti to the Lake Chad region, disrupted livelihoods and food insecurity have been linked to increased recruitment by armed groups.

Long-term security cannot be ensured while people’s livelihoods are at risk from climate change, the Director of Climate Change at Haiti’s environment ministry, Gerty Pierre, told the conference.

Insights

Humanitarian actors like the Red Cross Red Crescent are an important part of the conversation on climate security, working to ensure that discussions and potential solutions are grounded in local experience and the real needs of affected populations.

The Climate Centre’s storymap on climate change through a lens of different knowledge systems, for example, explores these local realities in 20 different conflict-affected countries, highlighting the ways in which people are addressing climate, environment, and social challenges.

These insights can help build the foundation for local leadership in climate-related programming across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.

Strengthening community resilience to climate shocks is a key objective of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – one that can support social cohesion, conflict prevention and wider peacebuilding.

Fragile and conflict-affected contexts can make for difficult operating environments, but effective programming is vital for both climate security and ensuring no one is left behind amidst political and social turmoil and insecurity.

Our forthcoming handbook, Navigating fragility, conflict and violence to strengthen community resilience, jointly developed by the IFRC, the ICRC, the German Red Cross and Climate Centre, to be launched during the IFRC General Assembly next week, provides practical guidance on such settings.

The Berlin Climate and Security Conference (pictured) this year comes just ahead of the annual UN climate talks, and the publication of a new Red Cross Red Crescent handbook on navigating fragility, conflict and violence. (Photo: BCSC)