Reaching Climate Security: How Climate Change Moved Up the UN Security Council Agenda

The energetic evolution of climate change as a United Nations Security Council issue has caught the interest of scholars and students alike. From an initial tentative debate to resolution paragraphs, the topic of has raced up the agenda of the organ, albeit not without its share of controversy.
“There is still no consensus on whether the Security Council is the right arena for climate discussions,” writes SOFIE BERGLUND in the research paper ‘Reaching Climate Security: How Climate Change Moved up the Security Council Agenda’, published by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
“While some states argue that action on climate change is central to international security and conflict prevention, others fear it could legitimize interference in states’ sovereign decision making on development choices.”
As global emission curves continue stubbornly to point upwards despite multilateral agreements to limit temperature rise, a Security Council directive on immediate, holistic action is viewed by some as crucial to preventing the worst global climate change forecasts from coming true, the author states. Sweden (in 2017-2018) and Germany (in 2019-2020) are two of the most recent examples of non-permanent members urging the Security Council to adopt a more ambitious agenda on climate security matters.
Indeed, it seems that Sweden’s approach to incorporating climate change awareness into the Security Council mandate was particularly fruitful. Despite the reluctance of some permanent members, climate change made it into several resolutions, and a climate security mechanism and an expert network group were formed during its two-year membership of the Council.
What led the Security Council to agree to make climate change part of its resolution vocabulary? As Germany picks up from where Sweden left off, backed by several risk assessments that highlight climate change as one of the biggest threats to global security, will concerns and objections soon just be muffled things of the past?
BERGLUND offers an overview of the progress of the climate security debate in the Security Council and examines the defining moments leading up to where we are today. It then looks at the future of climate change as a Security Council issue, focused on the ambitious commitments of Germany, a current non-permanent member, and the positions of the permanent members. The paper concludes with remarks on the opportunities and pitfalls ahead.
“While states that favor climate security being discussed in the Security Council have faced significant obstacles, their work has been persistent and has accelerated in recent years,” the author states. The variety of hosts of open debates and Arria-formula meetings on the matter is worthy of note, highlighting broad support for increased action by the Council. The positions of the veto powers are, as in most Council matters, the biggest impediment to getting agreement on a resolution focused solely on climate change-related security risks.
The first resolution to include the phrase ‘climate change’ was adopted after the Council was brought face to face with the security impacts of climate change. It therefore seems to have been key to Sweden’s work to approach the matter geographically, locating first one location particularly at risk of further destabilization from climate change, and then another, instead of forcing a new topic area onto the Council agenda.
Security Council Resolution 1373, which required all states to take action to criminalize terrorism, followed in the emotional aftermath of 9/11. This suggests that a resolution on limiting climate change might follow an extreme weather event or humanitarian disaster. What such an event might be to trigger Council action is unclear, as immense disasters have already taken place without generating such a response. However, given that climate change now appears in resolutions and is being debated by more actors, a greater Security Council response to environmental disasters appears more likely in the future. The current state of global climate politics, however, most notably the failure to reach a satisfying agreement at COP25 makes a resolution on climate security within the near less probable. More likely is a Council statement arising from the joint initiatives of states, urging national governments to treat climate change as a security risk.
In sum, this has two primary implications. First, although the position of some of the veto powers says otherwise, there is momentum for climate action at this level. The growth in membership of the Group of Friends on Climate Security is one expression of this, as well as the continuing work to establish mechanisms to facilitate communication between science and policymaking. This encourages continuing work to keep the topic on the agenda.
This progress does, however, risk obscuring concerns about giving the Security Council a mandate to act on climate change and although the issue is pressing, states need to be mindful of these concerns when moving forward. Action on climate security could, as shown in this text, add legitimacy to a contested Security Council, but if not handled mindfully, it risks giving rise to even more criticism of the undemocratic processes of the Council.
Second, in connection with the urgent nature of climate change, the obstacles are still significant and states cannot rely solely on the Security Council to provide an immediate response at this time. Instead, the alliances of like-minded states built within and outside the Council should take the lead on climate action in other forums, without necessarily losing momentum in the Council.
Despite the severe obstacles, the author states, there are good reasons for policymakers and academics not to neglect the Security Council as a forum for raising climate-related security matters. The debates and opinions signal an international desire for a more holistic approach to climate change that includes areas not traditionally considered appropriate for discussion in that body. Advances have already been made and, as Germany and other states have signaled, climate security will be raised again in the Security Council in the near future, making it an important area for future research and analysis.

Overcoming Opposition at the UNSC: Regional Multilateralism as a Form of Collective Pressure

Military interveners often seek endorsements from regional international organizations (IOs), in addition to approval from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), to reassure international and domestic audiences. Toward that end, interveners should seek the endorsement of continent-wide regional IOs with the broadest and most diverse membership, which are most likely to be independent.
In practice, however, interveners often seek endorsements from subregional IOs with narrow membership and aggregate preferences similar to their own, writes STEFANO RECCHIA in the Journal of Global Security Studies. This should weaken the reassurance/legitimation effect significantly.
In his research article titled ‘Overcoming Opposition at the UNSC: Regional Multilateralism as a Form of Collective Pressure’, RECCHIA argues that such narrower regional endorsements are sought not so much to reassure skeptical audiences, as to pressure reluctant UNSC members to approve the intervention by putting those members’ relations with regional partners at stake.
To illustrate this argument and probe its plausibility, the author reconstructs France’s successful efforts to obtain UNSC approval for its interventions in Côte d’Ivoire (2002-2003) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2003) at a time when the United States was hesitant to support France because of the two countries’ falling-out over the Iraq War.
“Both cases provide strong evidence that France used regional endorsements to overcome opposition at the UNSC,”  RECCHIA states. In the Côte d’Ivoire case, it is possible that Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional support pressed a hesitant US administration to come on board, not only by putting Washington’s relations with regional partners at stake, but also by depriving the administration of the argument that this was an illegitimate intervention.
By contrast, in the DRC case, the European Union (EU)’s endorsement can less plausibly be seen as having legitimized the intervention internationally, as the EU could in no way signal regional consent from within Africa. Hence, in the DRC case, it is very likely that if the United States ultimately voted in favor of the French-led intervention at the UNSC, in spite of clear misgivings, it did so to avoid harming US political and economic relations with other EU members.
The motivation for seeking regional endorsements theorized in the article – pressuring hesitant UNSC members –was especially visible in the Côte d’Ivoire and DRC cases. Yet since the mid-1990s, France has systematically sought endorsements from regional IOs for its interventions in Africa before requesting UNSC approval, for the most part working through ECOWAS and/or the EU.
“It is likely that in many of these cases, French leaders viewed regional multilateral endorsements as a way of smoothing the path toward UNSC approval by stepping up pressure on hesitant UNSC members,”  RECCHIA states.
In the run-up to the 2011 Libya intervention, for example, the main advocates of military action, France and the United Kingdom, secured endorsements from two regional multilateral bodies – the Gulf Cooperation Council and the League of Arab States. These regional bodies were in a position to put pressure on China and Russia, the principal UNSC holdouts in this case.
“This raises the question whether military interveners are free to ‘forum shop’ and seek the endorsement of regional IOs whose opinion on how to respond to a particular crisis ‘happens to coincide with their own’”.
The goals that military interveners pursue through regional multilateral endorsements should influence which particular organizations they approach. If the goal is reassuring skeptical audiences internationally and domestically, then interveners should seek the endorsement of regional IOs that appear especially legitimate in terms of the breadth and diversity of their membership and/or that can plausibly claim to represent the ‘collective will’ of the region targeted by the military action.
If, instead, the goal is to exert political pressure on hesitant UNSC members, then interveners should seek the endorsement of regional IOs whose members are enmeshed in close political, military, and economic relations with the principal holdouts on the UNSC; the diversity and ‘representativeness’ of the regional IO’s membership should be secondary. The ability of a military intervener to ‘forum shop’ is thus likely to be constrained by the types of benefits it hopes to achieve through regional backing.

Recchia, Stefano (2020) Overcoming Opposition at the UNSC: Regional Multilateralism as a Form of Collective Pressure. Journal of Global Security Studies, ogaa013, https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogaa013

China’s Evolving Approach to UN Peacekeeping in Africa

Beijing’s peace and security discourse, including its emphasis on non-interference and sovereignty, has remained relatively constant over the last decades.
However, China’s practice in Mali and South Sudan, as well as in Africa more generally, has evolved significantly, CEDRIC DE CONING and KARI M. OSLAND in a new report published by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.
China is supporting international efforts to improve the peace and security landscape in these countries. China is also bilaterally influencing developments through significant investments in infrastructure, agriculture, health and education, the authors state in the report titled ‘China’s Evolving Approach to UN Peacekeeping in Africa’.
“However, it is its active engagement in supporting international and regional mediation and the assertive way that Beijing has chosen to use peacekeeping that are the most telling indicators of how much its actual practice on the ground has evolved beyond its official rhetoric,” DE CONING and OSLAND write.
“At the same time China has been developing its own unique approach to peacekeeping and peacebuilding, based on a theory of change that sees peace as emerging from development. Taken together, these developments reflect turning points in how China chooses to contribute to international peace and security, and are indicative of how China is adapting to its new global power status.”

China’s Growing Engagement with the UN Development System as an Emerging Nation

While augmenting its volume of foreign aid by double digits since the beginning of the 21st century, China has also expanded from bilateral to South-South and triangular cooperation through various multilateral institutions to help bridge growing funding gaps for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda).
China is now the 11th largest funder of the World Bank’s International Development Association and second-largest contributor to the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets. “With its power and authority steadily increasing, China attaches great importance to the UN’s role in promoting global development and is working with the organization to align its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with the 2030 Agenda,” writes MAO RUIPENG in a new discussion paper.
China is providing more and more funds to the UN development system (UNDS), and in 2017, was its 13th largest funder. The past years have also witnessed China’s increasing voluntary contributions to UNDS agencies, particularly for humanitarian projects like those of the World Food Programme (WFP).
In May 2016, the Chinese government and the UN agreed that China would contribute US$200 million over ten years to set up the United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund (UNPDF), one of the most significant recent contributions to the United Nations from any country.
As China deepens its engagement in global governance and development, its strategic motivation and rising influence within the United Nations and on international rules and norms are attracting the world’s attention.
China’s shares of core funding and assessed contribution in its total UNDS funding are much higher than traditional donor countries, MAO writes in ‘China’s Growing Engagement with the UNDS as an Emerging Nation: Changing Rationales, Funding Preferences and Future Trends’, published by the German Development Institute.
However, the share of non-core funding has also jumped. While China tends to mostly provide funds for UNDS development projects, in recent years, it has even been hiking funding for humanitarian assistance.
The discussion paper also examines three cases of China’s earmarked funding – to the United Nations Development Program and the WFP, which receive the largest share of its UNDS funds, as well as for UNPDF operations.
There are several reasons for China’s growing engagement with the UNDS, from evolving perception of foreign aid and appreciating the UN’s multilateral assets to fostering the reputation of ‘responsible great nation’ and pushing forward the BRI through cooperation with the UNDS, the author states.
“Today, multilateralism is on the wane, and many countries are looking inward. China, however, continues to advocate multilateralism, fully acknowledging the UN’s authority in global governance and endorsing the UN Charter as the basis for the international order,” MAO writes.
China views its advocacy for the principles of broad consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits in global governance as consistent with the basic principles of multilateralism, according to the author. China also believes that most countries support multilateralism and resent unilateralism and protectionism.
“By supporting multilateralism China is able to promote relationships with other developing countries – as well as most Western ones,” MAO writes.
In general, China continues to integrate into the global development system and can be expected to maintain its support for the UN and continue to contribute to the UNDS.

Towards an Emotional Geography of Diplomacy: Insights from the United Nations Security Council

The rapid growth in the study of emotions in geography in recent years has fueled new conceptual and methodological insights into understandings of power, its expression, and socio‐spatial underpinnings. ALUN JONES progresses an emotional geography of diplomacy by considering emotions as part of calculative action on the part of diplomats.
In ‘Towards an emotional geography of diplomacy: Insights from the United Nations Security Council’, published in the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, JONES seeks to move the spotlight away from what emotion is to what emotion, as an embodied sociality, seeks to do to the alteration or reproduction of geopolitical relations.
“This unique focus on the calculative dimensions of emotional usage in diplomacy is a central though unexplored dimension of emotional geopolitics and one that I consider supports a perspective in which emotions are not depoliticized or trivialized, but situated, historicized, and relational, and which may be mobilized for political purposes,” he states.
Focusing on the socio‐spatiality of calculative emotions, and building on recent scholarly interest in the mobilization and manipulation of emotions, JONES explores their use in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), a poignant and powerful context for the study of emotional diplomacies.
Using empirically rich materials derived from interviews with Security Council delegations, the paper’s aims are threefold. First, JONES explore the different ways in which emotions are perceived, performed, interpreted, and acted on by diplomats in this international, inter‐cultural geopolitical body. Second, from a geographical perspective he investigates the ways in which embodied emotions are distinctively connected to specific sites and spaces, and demonstrate the complexities of their usage in the UNSC.
Finally, using a case study of Russian–UK emotional exchanges in the UNSC over the civil war and humanitarian crisis in Syria, JONES show that research on emotional diplomacies must be sensitive to the specific social and cultural assumptions over what particular emotions mean and do in altering and reproducing geopolitical relations.

Jones A. Towards an emotional geography of diplomacy: Insights from the United Nations
Security Council. Trans Inst Br Geogr. 2020;00:1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12371

The Effect of Peacekeeping on Postwar Violence

Existing research shows that peace after civil wars is more stable with peacekeepers present. Yet, violence persists in many postwar contexts, and although postwar violence is often strategic and closely linked to the faultlines of the preceding war, we know little about the impact of peacekeepers on such violence, writes CORINNE BARA.
“What we know, moreover, focuses on the former combatants, while this study shows that the majority of deaths in postwar violence are inflicted by other armed actors,” she writes in ‘Shifting targets: the effect of peacekeeping on postwar violence’, a research article published in the European Journal of International Relations. “This is a challenge for peacekeepers who – for mandate or capacity reasons – usually focus on the warring parties.”
BARA argues that the impact of peacekeepers on postwar violence hinges on the extent to which they fill a public security gap after war, since responsibility for violence not covered by a mission’s mandate lies with the often dysfunctional security agencies of the state. To test this, she uses a novel spatial approach to generate data that captures the manifold manifestations of violence across different postwar contexts. The author finds that only UN police – with their broader effect on public security – mitigate postwar violence generally. UN troops have some impact on civilian targeting by former combatants but no such effect could be identified for violence by other armed actors. The findings highlight the importance of peacekeeping police at a time when the modus operandi and capacity of UN police have been questioned, but also the importance of accounting for a multitude of violent actors when analysing the impact of international interventions more generally.

Bara, C. (2020). Shifting targets: the effect of peacekeeping on postwar violence. European Journal of International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066120902503

China and Russia in UN Security Council R2P Debates

Beijing and Moscow both have exerted significant influence on the evolution of the concept of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P), which has come to the forefront of the global human rights agenda in recent years. What are the similarities and differences between the two states in those debates, and what are the reasons behind them?
ZHENG CHEN and HANG YIN compare the rhetoric of the two countries in debates relevant to R2P at the UN Security Council (UNSC). The primary subjects are thematic debates on protection of civilians in armed conflicts, in which R2P is a key topic, and debates on the Syrian crisis, the most controversial recent issue involving the application of R2P.
“As discourses reflect and construct social reality, probing these questions will help us to a better understanding of the two states’ R2P policies within a broader strategic context,” the authors write in ‘China and Russia in R2P debates at the UN Security Council’, published in International Affairs.
The positions of China and Russia towards R2P are similar, expressing support for the first two pillars of R2P while resisting coercive intervention under the third pillar. For both Beijing and Moscow, safeguarding domestic political security is a predominant concern. They strongly opposed external interventions that could lead to regime change and state fragmentation, especially in those regions close to their borders or in their partner states.
In other cases, both states were ready to adopt a conditionally cooperative approach. They are very keen to preserve their role as ‘permission givers’ for international actions and to participate actively in relevant discussions to shape the further development of R2P.
The two states have found each other useful to lean on during some difficult situations, CHEN and YIN write. In the case of Syria, for example, they used each other as diplomatic cover. That is, however, a far cry from a looming ‘partnership of spoilers’.
“The notion of a Sino-Russia bloc obscures the subtle differences between the two. While Beijing appears to prefer a more cautious approach, Moscow is inclined to adopt increasingly aggressive stances on issues such as the Syrian conflict.”
CHEN and YIN argue that many of these differences between the two arise from China’s and Russia’s divergent status prospects, and their correspondingly different ways of signaling their Great Power status. While the power gap between China and the United States is still large, Beijing is confident of its rising status prospect.
“For Beijing, the future seems bright and so it can afford to wait, a cautious and patient approach promising better long-term pay-offs. It thus focuses on ensuring favorable external conditions for its internal development and preventing any external efforts to contain or disrupt its continued rise.”
Beijing has adopted an assertive posture from time to time in the past few years and its potential as a challenger is real; but we should also note the limitations of Chinese assertiveness as well as the continuity of its foreign strategy, the authors state. As long as the Chinese core interests of political security and territorial sovereignty are not adversely affected, Beijing is inclined to follow a course of cooperation and conflict avoidance in its diplomacy. In this process, China has developed a moderate discourse on R2P.
Meanwhile, Russia is in a much more precarious position and perceives its status more from a frame of loss. “It is the successor to a failed superpower and is encountering great difficulties in overcoming a systemic decline. Moscow’s recent assertiveness stems from its frustration at not being treated as an equal, and its consequent intention to signal its resolve to recover at least some of its former prestige,” the authors state.
Russia is very sensitive to events that challenge its status and is risk-prone in countering perceived threats. Amid its continuing concern about ‘losing ground’ to the West in its traditional sphere of influence, Moscow’s attitude to risk prompts it to play the role of a loud and visible dissenter on the international stage, and R2P became a victim to this approach. The R2P debates thus provide a revealing prism through which to analyze the two countries’ foreign strategies. In sum, although the two regimes do instinctively look to each other for mutual support so as to avoid isolation at the UNSC, Beijing and Moscow do not have an identical outlook on issues such as the application of R2P.
The current partnership between China and Russia is not without its difficulties. Washington’s dual containment strategy against both has contributed greatly to their current rapprochement. For the foreseeable future, Moscow and Beijing will regard Washington as their shared principal adversary, and each will treat the other as a main partner. However, both also know well the limitations of what the other can offer, since they have different objectives and agendas. While Russia is anxious about becoming overly dependent on China, Beijing is worried about being dragged into unnecessary conflicts which would jeopardize China’s peaceful rise.
The continued success of this partnership depends on both sides’ ability to manage their underlying differences. As they have divergent perceptions of their own status prospects, the temporary synergy between the two states on R2P debates does not necessarily set a norm for the future.