Climate security in humanitarian, peacekeeping and stabilisation responses

When: 8 October 2024 | 13:50-14:30

Format: Panel discussion

Venue: Plenary session (Weltsaal)

Climate change has been explicitly placed as a central aspect of the UN’s conflict prevention agenda. The toolbox for integrating climate risks into preventative and anticipatory action is steadily growing. The effects of climate change, are however, already unfolding in fragile and conflict affected zones, complicating efforts to promote stability and build peace. Heavy rains and flooding have impacted areas in central, eastern and western Sudan, increasing vulnerability of displaced communities already facing crisis levels of hunger, and exacerbating the toll of a year-long civil war. In August, upwards of 50 trucks carrying food assistance for roughly 500,000 people were stuck across Sudan and unable to move as a result of flooded and impassable roads. Similarly, in Haiti, youth in rural areas involved in farming and pastoralism, exposed to high levels of climate-related uncertainty, are pushed to urban centres where they are more vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups and sexual and gender-based violence.

So how are climate security risks managed in the contexts of stabilization and peacekeeping? And how are humanitarian efforts contributing to long-term climate-resilience? Who needs to be involved, how are the risks understood, and how should responses be operationalized? This session will bring together voices from across the humanitarian, security and political spheres to take stock of climate security dynamics in some of the most challenging peacekeeping contexts. Panellists will discuss how to apply a multi-dimensional climate security lens to these efforts, and seek to outline priorities, roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders to ensure they are successful.

Speakers:

• Anne A. Witkowsky, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations of the United States Department of State 
• Hiroko Hirahara, Director of Civil Affairs Division, United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS)
• Gerty Pierre, Climate Change Director, Ministry of Environment of Haiti 

Input and moderation by David Miliband, President and CEO, International Rescue Committee (IRC) 

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