Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
regional initiatives in, respectively, Africa, Asia, Latin America, Central Asia and the
Middle East. These aimed to elaborate proposals on how to confront climate
change from a security perspective using regional dialogues to foster south
south
networks and impart best-practice experiences. In September 2012 foreign minister
Guido Westerwelle hosted an informal event on climate security with his Mor-
occan counterpart in the United Nations. Building on this, the UK and Pakistan
joined forces for a follow-up informal debate in early 2013. Germany has engaged
Norway on a joint seminar programme, re
-
ecting concern that the latter is heading
towards the Canadian and Russian line of unrestrained resource exploitation in the
Arctic. The federal government has used a share of revenues from the ETS speci-
cally to fund research and educational programmes on the geopolitical impact of
climate change.
As early as 2003, then British prime minister Tony Blair warned of the dangers of
climate change to security,
The destruction of the environment and
global warming are as great a threat to world peace as terrorism and weapons of mass
destruction.
insisting that
'
s 2008
National Security Strategy
posited a link between climate
change and security and claimed that
'
23
The UK
'
Climate change is potentially the greatest
challenge to global stability and security, and therefore to national security.
'
A priority
focus was the danger of other states stockpiling resources in the face of shortages.
24
A
Department for Environment, Food & Rural A
'
airs (Defra) o
cial leading national
adaptation plan insists that the approach has been to
inject the international dimen-
sion, because otherwise we could make no progress on things like national
'
oods,
which is all people think [climate security] is to do with
'
. Foreign secretary William
Hague
s climate envoy has repeatedly insisted that climate security policies only made
sense as a common and cooperative endeavour at the global level.
O
'
cials report that climate change already impacts upon planning and policy
analysis in Afghanistan and African con
ict interventions. The UK de
nes climate
change as a critical driver of such civil con
ict threats. A climate group was formed
and began feeding in assessments to the UK National Security Council. The UK
set up a parliamentary committee on climate change, also with a broad mandate
covering the more political dimensions of global warming. In 2010 William Hague
suggested that
'
'
Climate change is perhaps the twenty-
rst century
s biggest foreign
policy challenge
erent dimensions of climate
change is above all else a job, he argued, for foreign policy: diplomacy had the
responsibility to
'
. Responding e
ectively to all the di
.
25
'
put climate change at the heart of foreign policy
'
In July 2011,
the UK Foreign O
ce published its
Building Stability Overseas Strategy
. The docu-
ment refers to climate as a source of instability multiple times. The document states
that the government
will further encourage the [United Nations Security] Council
to mainstream climate security into its con
'
ict work
'
and also commission
'
sys-
tematic reviews of the evidence
…
on the impact of climate change
'
.
26
