Navigating the Nexus of Climate, Peace and Security
When: 29 April 2026 | 09:30-10:30
Format: High-level dialogue
Venue: Plenary
Climate change is fundamentally reshaping the international peace and security landscape, with climate-related instabilities increasingly manifesting across regions and conflict contexts. From intensifying resource competition and displacement to the erosion of state fragility and governance capacity, the compounding effects of a changing climate are placing growing pressure on the foundations of peace.
This opening high-level dialogue brings together senior representatives from UN member states and the broader UN system to take stock of where the international community stands — and where it must go. As climate impacts accelerate, the question is no longer whether climate, peace and security considerations belong in multilateral frameworks, but how swiftly and coherently they can be embedded across the full spectrum of conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and sustaining peace efforts.
The session provides a forward-looking platform to reflect on the political momentum behind the climate-security nexus, the institutional architecture needed to support it, and the pathways through which the UN system can move from recognising climate as a threat multiplier to acting on that recognition with urgency and coordination. Bringing together voices from frontline states, partner governments and the UN system, this dialogue opens the conference in a spirit of shared purpose — setting the stage for the sessions that follow and anchoring the day's conversations in the political realities and collective commitments shaping the climate, peace and security agenda today.
Guiding questions:
- What institutional and political barriers currently prevent a more systematic integration of climate, peace and security considerations into UN conflict prevention and peacebuilding frameworks — and what would it take to overcome them?
- How can member states — particularly those most vulnerable to climate-related insecurity — more effectively shape and drive the climate-security agenda within multilateral institutions?
- What concrete commitments or reforms within the UN system would most significantly advance the climate, peace and security agenda over the next five years?
Speakers:
- Ambassador Ksenija Škrilec, Special Envoy on Climate Diplomacy, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia
- Ambassador Lara Daniel, Permanent Representative of Nauru to the UN (tbc)
- Andžejs Viļumsons, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Latvia (tbc)
- Australian Assistant Minister (?)
- Erastus Lokaale, Permanent Represenative of Kenya to the UN (tbc) - invite not issued yet
- Video message from Guang Cong, Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa (tbc)
Moderated by xx,
Return to the BCSC 2026 New York Agenda.