The Nordic Countries have warned in a joint statement that climate change is undermining global peace and security.
The statement was given to a meeting of the UN Security Council on the theme Climate and Security.
The high-level meeting of the Security Council was chaired by Micheál Martin, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland and attended by the Foreign Ministers of, among others, the United States, Russia and France, as well as the President of Estonia.
„Environmental degradation and biodiversity loss are important drivers of insecurity and conflict around the world, and rising rates of degradation and loss are increasingly impacting global peace and security,” Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden said in a joint-statement.
They also pointed out that climate- and nature-related risks to global peace and security overlap and are mutually reinforcing. „As they cannot be fully addressed independently from one another, solutions are equally interconnected: climate-related security risks can be reduced by actions to protect, restore and sustainably manage ecosystems that allow them to keep providing vulnerable populations with food, water and energy, enabling climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction.“
Bolder climate action needed
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in his address to the Security Council that “much bolder climate action is needed” to maintain international peace and security.
He urged the G20 industrialized nations to step up and drive action before the UN Climate Conference (COP26) in early November.
Against the backdrop of wildfires, flooding, droughts and other extreme weather events, the UN chief said that “no region is immune”.
And he pointed out that the climate crisis is “particularly profound” with compounded by fragility and conflict.
Describing climate change and environmental mismanagement as “risk multipliers”, he explained that last year, climate-related disasters displaced more than 30 million people and that 90 per cent of refugees come from countries least able to adapt to the climate crisis.
