Training on Climate Security Is Crucial for the Future of Peace Operations

Oct 12, 2023 | Farah Hegazi
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Demand from peace operations for training on climate-related security risks has grown steadily and quickly over the past few years. Missions are experiencing first-hand the destabilizing, complicating effects of climate change on their work, and they want to know how to understand these effects and what to do about them.

Training on climate-related security risks aims to give missions a framework for understanding the relationship between climate change, peace and security. It is designed to help missions not only to protect the progress they have already made but also to leverage opportunities for synergy between peacebuilding and climate change responses. Ultimately this should make the communities that missions support more resilient to climate change and less likely to descend into conflict.

But the financial resources required to provide such training are limited. The UN Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace calls for the UN Security Council to ‘address the peace and security implications of climate change’ in countries on the Council’s agenda. This blog argues that training for peace missions on climate-related security could be critical to meeting the New Agenda’s call and necessary for missions to stay effective. As such, this training deserves increased funding.