Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
At the end of 2011 the UK government produced one of the most compre-
hensive reports to date disaggregating the relevance of climate change across each
major area of foreign policy. This report formed part of the UK government
'
s new
legal commitment to o
er a more political set of climate risk assessments. It poin-
ted to the government
'
s attempt to assess how climate change threatened not only
direct physical e
new interests into the geopolitical calcula-
tions of states, for which current global governance structures were not designed
ects but would bring
'
.
The prevailing institutions of global governance were designed to prevent war
between ideological adversaries, not to manage shared problems of resource scar-
city. This government analysis pointed strongly in the direction of a cooperation-
based approach to climate security; indeed, it argued that the gravest climate
security threat could be its undermining of multilateral cooperation even more
than its direct e
'
ects on the domestic environment. 27
Indeed, along with Germany, the UK has been one of the most active of
European states in pushing to have the UN Security Council assume a lead role
in climate change. In 2007 then foreign secretary Margaret Beckett argued
that climate change was,
'
an issue which threatens the peace and security of
the whole planet
-
[the UN Security Council] has to be the right place to
. 28 The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has acknowledged that the
challenge of climate security increases the need for cooperative multilateralism,
stating that:
debate it
'
There is clearly a role for MoD to play in the understanding of, and response
to, the international impacts of climate change; however this cannot be
achieved by acting alone. Rather, a combination of actors is necessary in
order to both avert the likelihood of climate change induced con
ict, and to
respond if and when it does occur. 29
Denmark was also an early promoter of the linkage between climate change and
security. In a 2006 report, the Danish Ministry of Foreign A
airs recommended
that Denmark
uence in the UN system to try to get anthropogenic
climate change recognised as a threat to international peace and security
'
use its in
. 30
Denmark is the only country that is a member of the EU, NATO and the Arctic
Council. Its ministry of foreign a
'
airs has an all-encompassing department for
environment, energy and climate change. In 2009, Denmark hosted a high-level
seminar on climate change and international security. The then foreign minister,
Per Stig Møller, argued:
Climate change, if left unchecked, will intensify and multiply existing
security threats. Security threats like demographic pressures, access to water,
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