CLIMATE AND EU CONFLICT PREVENTION POLICIES - Climate Change and European Security - page 97

While rhetorically EU member states have urged UN con ict prevention

operations more systematically to lead on the climate - security link, in practice they

have done little to help correct the UN ' s very limited role in this area to date. The

UNDP s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery works on climate change, but

mainly as a measure of risk assessment. It recognises climate change as a phenom-
enon that will accelerate current patterns of natural disaster, but does not explicitly
deal with it as a feature of con

'

ict prevention. There has been talk in the UN of a
new environmental peacekeeping force

- popularly dubbed the ' green helmets '-

which could step into con icts caused by ever-scarcer resources. 17 However, sev-

eral European countries, including Germany, have argued that such a force is
unnecessary as such functions are already being performed fully by the standard
blue helmets, who have long intervened in areas beyond traditional con

icts. The

Post-Con ict and Disaster Management Branch of the UNEP has begun working

more systemically on climate change, migration and con ict in the Sahel.

ict from two directions: on the
one hand, introducing environmental factors into the con

The UN claims it has approached climate con

ict prevention debate;

on the other hand, introducing con ict prevention as a topic within the environ-

mental debate. The ected in discussions in the Security Coun-

cil; the second approach is germane to the UNEP Con

rst approach is re

icts programme. The two
approaches are not mutually exclusive, but they both currently lack full imple-

mentation. The seminal 2001 Resolution 1366 on con ict resolution provides a

working framework, but under this climate change has to be formally recognised as
a by the Council before any action can be imple-

mented. This has held back practical changes to con

' root cause of armed con ict '

ict initiatives. Another pro-
blem is that the UN Global Environmental Facility (GEF) funds projects in a way
that is linked to World Bank reform packages, which remain highly economistic
and exclude any con ict prevention focus. While UNEP is one of GEF ' s imple-

menting agencies, it has struggled to develop cross-agency climate-con ict pro-

grammes with other UN organs. 18 A subsequent 2011 Swiss Peace study found
improvements were still piecemeal. In 2010 the UN Environmental Programme
established environmentally driven con ict as one of its priorities, with an alloca-

tion of $50 million, along with a toolkit for UN country teams for how to address
the climate - con ict link. But Swiss Peace concludes that it is still di cult to see

any tangible upgrade or change to UN con ict prevention. 19

A developmental approach to security?
The EU and European governments insist that they have engineered a tighter link-
age between con the aid ring fenced

to help developing states with mitigation and adaptation. They have increased

ict prevention and general ' climate nance '-