Why Climate Change Matters for Human Security
Publisher: UN Environment Program and UN University Centre for Policy Research
Author(s): Janani Vivekananda
Date: 2022
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Land, Livelihoods, Programming, Renewable Resources
This paper explores the mix of mediating factors with a view to understand and inform decision- makers on how these factors affect the capacity of individuals and institutions to adapt to climate change and manage conflict in a peaceful manner. It explains how managing these security risks requires action across the entire impact chain: mitigating and adapting to climate change; better management of climate-induced heightened resource competition; and strengthening governance and bolstering social relations. And every dimension of these responses must be conflict-sensitive and climate proof.
Without the right responses, climate change will mean more fragility, less peace, and less security. But with comprehensive climate-security risk and foresight analysis to inform our understanding of how climate change interacts with social, political, economic, and environmental drivers of conflict and fragility, who is most affected and under what circumstances, we will be better placed to make the kind of risk-informed decisions that are integral to sustaining peace in a changing climate.