While many have identified ways that climate change or environmental degradation might affect peace and security concerns, how to best respond to these so-called ‘climate-security’ challenges in peacebuilding contexts is still an emerging area of practice.
This Thematic Review analysed 74 projects supported by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) that responded to climate-security issues or took up other forms of environmental peacebuilding in 33 countries over the last six years. Analysis of these projects and other emerging practice offers insights into how to address a range of climate-security challenges, with particular attention to cross-border and transnational approaches to climate-security programming, the links between climate change adaptation and peacebuilding, and the nexus between gender, climate and security.
The findings suggest that local level engagement on climate-security and peacebuilding may be one of the most innovative and tractable ways for making progress on a range of peacebuilding goals. Peacebuilding that incorporated environmental or climate-related lenses got to the heart of what many communities viewed as their most pressing human security concerns, helped mitigate significant sources of intra-communal violence, and created opportunities to address more systemic or structural issues, such as exclusion and marginalization of certain groups or women’s empowerment. It even offered entry points and pathways for building peace or mitigating conflict in the most conflict-affected and fragile environments.
A launch event featuring the authors and other experts in the field will take place on Tuesday, April 25, 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM EDT. Simultaneous translation in English, French, and Spanish will be available. Register here.
This Thematic Review on Climate-Security and Peacebuilding was commissioned by the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) in partnership with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Climate Security Mechanism (CSM), with additional support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
Full translations of the report and executive summary in French and Spanish will be available in the near future.
Authors: Erica Gaston, Oliver Brown, with Nadwa al-Dawsari, Cristal Downing, Adam Day, & Raphael Bodewig.
Read the Thematic Review and other research outputs here:
Suggested citation: "Thematic Review on Climate-Security and Peacebuilding," UNU-CPR (blog), 2023-04-15, 2023, https://unu.edu/cpr/blog-post/thematic-review-climate-security-and-peacebuilding.
