Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
and food shortages. The alarming thing is that it will be the most vulnerable
regions that will face the most severe consequences of climate change.
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Denmark was possibly the
rst country to make concrete calls for the whole array
of international organisations to recognise climate change as a security threat.
Sweden
s general commitment to tackling climate change is habitually ranked
amongst the highest in the world. Sweden has created an inter-ministerial working
group with participants from the prime minister
'
'
so
ce and ministries of environ-
ment, defence and foreign a
airs that commits itself to addressing climate security
policy issues. Crucially, Sweden sees the Arctic Council as a primary tool for
addressing the geopolitical dimensions of climate change, and as a good example of
e
ective multilateralism. Swedish diplomats routinely claim that the Arctic Council
has made an unprecedented degree of cooperation possible among the traditionally
mutually suspicious Arctic states. With some irony, it is often pointed out that the
high level of commitment
ows from these two Scandinavian countries that are
widely seen as potential winners from global warming. It is said to be testament to
the fact that even those states less directly ravaged by climate change now acknowl-
edge that they will be menaced by damage done to other parts of the planet.
In 2010, the Netherlands played a lead role in galvanising debates over food
security and the move towards
. The Dutch government
committed to additional climate funding for 2013 directed in particular at inter-
national cooperative forums working on contested water management. France has
expressed particular concern with the e
'
climate smart agriculture
'
ects of emissions in Africa and most spe-
ci
cally with the implications these could have for security in the Sahel region. In
2009, it launched a joint Anglo-French study on the security implications of cli-
mate change in the Sahel region. The study aimed to determine the security
implications of climate change for the period from 2030 to 2040.
32
President Sar-
kozy proposed a World Environmental Organisation that would have a broad
political mandate and serve as focal point for more joined-up multilateral com-
mitments. Building on these commitments, the French government published an
extensive climate strategy in 2011 that also broadened out the geo-strategic focus
of climate action.
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Spain
s 2011 national security strategy talks of climate as representing a particu-
larly acute threat, given the country
'
s geographical position and proximity to
North Africa.
34
In 2005 the Spanish government set up a Military Emergencies
Unit (Unidad Militar de Emergencias) to respond to natural catastrophes, including
those caused by climate factors. Climate change features as one of
'
ve global issues
for the Italian ministry of foreign a
airs, alongside human rights, the
ght against
terrorism, disarmament, and energy
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despite former prime minister Silvio Ber-
lusconi being a prominent climate change doubter; at the 2008 G8 summit he
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