Written by Martin Wall, CAROLINE Fellow, adelphi
A substantial new report by WWF France has praised the work of the Planetary Security Initiative and its key partners including adelphi, the Clingendaal Institute, the Center for Climate and Security, the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The report entitled Sustainability, Stability and Security highlighted the Planetary Security Initiative and its partner organisations as being important for mobilising and promoting dialogue and action on climate, security and development issues.
According to the report, the Planetary Security Initiative is a valuable forum for fostering relationships between various military, ecological, diplomatic and economic communities. It recommended that initiatives such as this be strengthened to encourage communities to meet and review current issues and to take joint measures with the aim of ensuring security by tackling climate change. On top of this, the report stressed the importance of the research work of the Planetary Security Initiative’s partner organisations in ensuring that the problems of climate, security and development are given a central role in national and international agendas. It found that independent analysis is critical to achieve intelligent and integrated policy in order to prevent risk and insecurity. Moreover, it enables decision makers to prepare appropriate responses to ongoing situations. In order to grasp the importance of the issues, highlight potential worries, develop future actions and test practices, WWF France recommends that research is adequately funded and brought to the attention of media and policy makers in the North and South.
This report is validation of the importance of the ongoing work of the Planetary Security Initiative ahead of its upcoming conference in December in The Hague. It reinforces the message that climate change and security concerns are interlinked and require an appropriate policy response and frameworks. As the report makes clear, the issue is a global problem that not only impacts the environment but also the economy, institutions and society as a whole.
WWF France maintains that it is now up to states and international organisations to develop appropriate responses, beginning with compliance with the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. Achieving this will considerably diminish the risk of insecurity and conflict worldwide but an integrated response is key. International organisations, states and supranational institutions need to integrate climate/security thinking into diplomatic strategies and promote adaptation and resilience.
With this report, WWF France has set out a doctrine – one that the Planetary Security Initiative has been engaging with and supporting over the last number of years – that climate issues should be examined as a potential part of the underlying sources of conflict alongside political, ethnic, religious and economic issues.
Consequently, WWF France has eight recommendations, including additional support for initiatives such as Planetary Security Initiative. These are:
- Implement the Paris Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
- Produce a robust and independent expertise
- Strengthen international cooperation through platforms such as the Planetary Security Initiative
- Transform analyses and initiatives into concrete action for local populations, especially youth
- Provide training in Sustainability-Stability-Security to military and diplomatic staff on a national level
- Add sustainability experts to the crisis management departments of diplomatic missions and defence ministries
- To prevent risk, anticipate crises and improve operational responses, Defence and Foreign Ministries should join forces to reproduce the IPCC scenarios and stress test them against the potential consequences of unchecked global warming.
- Increase financing for resilience and adaptation to climate change by considering it an investment in local and global security.
According to WWF France, the investment in sustainability is a way of actively promoting a safer, more stable world and it is an investment in world peace.