Turning the Climate-Security Problem on Its Head: Geoff Dabelko Talks G7 ‘Climate for Peace’ Report

Jul 29, 2015 | Linnea Bennett
View Original

Conversations around climate change often take place at the “30,000-foot level,” said Ohio University Professor and ECSP Senior Advisor Geoff Dabelko in a recent radio interview with WOUB Public Media, based out of Athens, Ohio. Emission reductions, carbon concentrations, global temperatures. But a certain amount of change is already baked into the system and impacts are playing at in different ways around the world already.

“We have to adapt, we have to spend time understanding how these impacts are going to play out and bring it down to that ground level, and then start trying to build resilience at multiple levels,” said Dabelko.

Helping policymakers move along this response chain was the aim of a new report authored by Dabelko and a consortium of research organizations including the Wilson Center on behalf of the G7 governments. The report, A New Climate for Peace, recommends concrete steps governments should take to address climate-fragility risks.