Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Beyond the progress made in climate funding, however, three shortcomings
persist in its role in climate security.
A tenuous link to security
First, critics say the EU
s approach almost dampens the security logic through a dis-
course implying that the issue is little more than a need for more sustainable devel-
opment. Diplomats admit in private that while access to energy projects may have
had some useful impact, they have not been designed speci
'
cally with security aims
in mind. So far, the commitment to climate security is di
cult to detect within
development programming. DfID business plans up to 2015 give little indication of
how it might be given concrete substance. Indeed, D
'
D insists on retaining
re-
walls
which prevent aid being spent on anything too security-related. DfID sees the
climate security agenda as being about justifying its focus on the protection of vul-
nerable communities; DECC see it as justifying support for partners in multilateral
climate talks; while the FCO sees in it money for security risks.
26
DfID o
'
cials
admit that within the wide array of adaptation funding in developing states little
progress has been made on
.
German diplomats acknowledge that, in practice, the con
'
climate-proo
ng peace-building
'
ict resolution dimen-
sion remains the weakest link in German approaches to climate security. Danish
diplomats lament one example of what they see as the EU
s inability to think and
act geo-strategically in response to climate-induced social and economic changes:
while China is moving massively to take advantage of newly accessible rare earths
in Greenland and o
'
ering comprehensive economic partnership in consequence,
the EU is merely o
-the-shelf development projects
to help people deal with the micro-level socio-economic adjustment required by
climate change.
The vanguard work of in
ering ine
ectual
'
soft
'
and o
uential peace-building organisation International Alert
admonishes European donors for failing to close the disconnects between the
con
ict resolution, development and climate adaptation policy-making commu-
nities. Security is still
within international climate talks
and the plethora of climate diplomacy forums that now exist. Donors still need
fully to incorporate
'
the elephant in the room
'
into their adaptation funding. The key is to
help make societies more resilient to climate variability. This reinforces the need to
strengthen local economic, social and political capacities in developing states. The
inter-linkages between climate and con
'
con
ict sensitivity
'
ict interventions remain poorly under-
stood and articulated. Many adaptation projects inadvertently make societies less
resilient. This is because rents from new technologies are captured by elites in a
way that compounds governance pathologies. Governments conceive adaptation
too narrowly as a matter of protective, physical
infrastructure or
renewable
