Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Climate Change and Peace Operations

What can UN peace operations, designed primarily to supervise cease-fires and rebuild states after civil wars, do to protect the environment and combat the effects of climate change?

Full Text
"Facilitating climate change to be more in the purview of the Security Council constitutes only a first step to involve peace operations further in environmental concerns," contends PAUL DIEHL, in an essay for the Oxford Research Group.
"The development of an independent capacity for data collection, modelling, and early warning systems provides the infrastructure to make proper and timely decisions for peace operation authorisation once climate change is on the agenda.
"If other UN agencies and NGOs bring climate change mitigation and adaptation programs to peacebuilding in post-conflict environments, this opens up the opportunities for coordination with peace operations, without expecting the latter to carry out functions for which they are not well-suited.
"Such coordination requires advance planning among different actors, but such networks are already present in peacebuilding operations and therefore these mechanisms offer the best prospects for UN peacekeeping to enhance its footprint in climate change responses."

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