EVENT SERIES: Europe, Climate Security and Conflict Resolution
Date and time: 22 June and 6 July, 14:30 – 16:30
Location: online
Contact: julie.raasteen@cg9lzbbryk.preview.infomaniak.website
Participation upon invitation
Over the past fifteen years the implications of climate change for international peace and security have risen up the international agenda. In the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risk report, climate change related risks occupied the top five places. The UK first brought the issue to the UN Security Council in 2007 and there have been several such debates since. Meanwhile, climate security has been referenced, albeit often in passing, in more than a dozen Security Council resolutions since 2017.
In two High-Level meetings, the European Institute of Peace will discuss Europe’s role in addressing climate insecurity and conflict and how mediators are responding to the challenges in their work.
22 June: Europe, Climate Insecurity and Conflict Resolution
In 2008, a joint paper by Javier Solana and the EU Commission argued that managing climate risk is essential to security and prosperity in the EU. Ten years later, in June 2018, High Representative Federica Mogherini hosted a High-level event on Climate, Peace and Security, emphasizing the political importance of this topic. Since then there have been a number of initiatives at EEAS, DEVCO, ECHO and CLIMA that broadly relate to this area.
The EU is a major player in many conflict-affected areas, such as the Middle East, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. In these areas the EU wields a huge amount of political and financial influence but its twin agendas of action on climate change and peace may occasionally be in conflict with each other. This session, which will draw upon specific priority regions, is an opportunity to discuss the extent to which the EU’s practical interventions on the ground in terms of climate change and peace can become more mutually reinforcing.
Keynote: former HR/VP Federica Mogherini
Speakers:
• Hilde Hardeman, Head, European Commission Service for Foreign Policy Instruments
• Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, UN Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa
• Malin Mobjörk, Senior Researcher SIPRI
• Nick Mabey, Chief Executive, E3G
• Tom Middendorp, International Military Council on Climate and Security, formerly Netherlands Chief of Defense
6 July: Climate, Conflict Resolution and Mediation
The context in which mediators operate is evolving. Climate change is steadily redrawing the map of the world – shifting where rain falls and altering the extent of deserts and seas. It is one of several global megatrends, along with population growth, technological change and rapid urbanisation, that are shaping and reshaping relations between and within countries. Whether they like it or not, mediators will find themselves increasingly attempting to resolve conflicts where climate change has played some role in contributing to the outbreak of violence.
With distinguished speakers and participants, the European Institute of Peace will discuss how mediators and conflict resolution experts experience these challenges and address them in their work.
Speakers:
• Nancy Lindborg, President and CEO of USIP
• Fink Haysom, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on Sudan, Under Secretary General at United Nations (tbc)
• Sergio Jaramillo, former High Commissioner for Peace to Colombia, EIP Senior Advisor
• Teresa Whitfield, Director, Policy and Mediation Division, UNDPPA