Climate Change, Peace and Security, and the UN Group of Friends

In March 2021, the United States held the Presidency of the UN Security Council for the first time during the presidency of Joe Biden. In a virtual meeting of the permanent members of the Council, President Biden announced that the U.S. “intends to formally join” the UN Group of Friends on Climate and Security. “I’m thrilled to be standing with my colleagues from Nauru and Germany,” added U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda-Thomas Greenfield soon after, “to announce the United States has officially joined the UN Group of Friends on Climate and Security.”

While nations may not have permanent friends or enemies, the United Nations does have a Group of Friends — many Groups of Friends, actually. Outside of its main organs (the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, and the Secretariat), the United Nations system is a complex web of offices, commissions, and other entities. Among these other entities are Groups of Friends. These groups are informal coalitions of UN member states that coalesce for common and specific causes ranging from climate change to peacekeeping and conflict mediation.

Groups of Friends emerged out of the post-Cold War era, starting in 1990 with the Friends of the Secretary-General on El Salvador, which cooperated and coordinated with the Government of El Salvador and the FMLN to eventually bring about the Peace Agreement signed at Chapultepec in 1992. With origins in supporting UN peacemaking processes and peace operations, these Groups of Friends ballooned in the early 90s to support mediation efforts in a range of countries.

Today there are over 40 different Groups of Friends with varying topical foci outside of the original group focused on conflict mediation and peacemaking. That includes the Group of Friends on Climate and Security, which Germany started in 2018 with 27 member states and now has well over 50. The Group of Friends on Climate and Security aims to develop cooperative solutions “for the impact of climate change on security policy, raise public awareness, and boost the involvement of the United Nations in this area.”

This new Group reflects a growing consensus at the United Nations. The Security Council has acknowledged the impact of climate change on international peace and security through several resolutions, albeit not without careful consideration and deliberation about what language to include. For example, Resolution 2349, released in 2017, cites climate and ecological change among the many factors affecting regional stability around Lake Chad, “including through water scarcity, drought, desertification, land degradation, and food insecurity,” and even links these factors “to the rise of violent extremism.”

During its February 2021 meeting on climate and security, the Council heard from some persuasive voices: Director of the Centre National d’Etudes Stratégiques et de Sécurité (CNESS, Niger), Colonel Magagi, described how climate change is affecting regional security in the Sahel, highlighting that even in the best of conditions “the Sahel is a challenging place, particularly for farmers and herders.” In the Sahel, already high temperatures are on the rise and are “projected to increase by 2.5℃ by 2060,” he continued, “all of this change is bound to have adverse consequences for regional peace and security.” Eighty percent of the Sahelian population relies on activities sensitive to climate change for livelihood. Colonel Magagi described a 2021 survey conducted by CNESS revealing “that in the Lake Chad region of Niger, the floods in 2012-2013 boosted Boko Haram recruitment in the region as young people who lost their crops turned to the violent extremist movement as an alternative.”

The Council also heard from the Director of the Sustainable Pacific Consultancy, Coral Pasisi, who talked about how island states in the Pacific are among the most affected. Among the many climate impacts on small island nation’s security, Pasisi highlighted, one clear example is sea-level rise (SLR). For many islands in the Pacific, specifically low-lying atolls, “the baselines used to demarcate maritime boundaries consist of coral islands and sandy keys,” which are vulnerable to climate change-induced SLR, ocean acidification, and degradation of coral reef systems,” Pasisi added, “four of our low-lying atoll nations have between 90-100 percent of their EEZs demarcated based on these vulnerable baseline features, which could have significant consequences for statehood, national identities, sustainable development, livelihoods, and law and order in the Pacific ... there can be no greater threat to our security than the potential loss of one’s entire nation and its jurisdictions as established under international law.”

The meeting featured common agreement on a few key topics related to climate and security: (1) support for the action items noted by Germany (calling on the Secretary-General to appoint a Special Representative on Climate and Security and for the UN to address climate security risks in all mandates and conflict prevention strategies); (2) the need for greater attention and resources toward a gendered approach to climate and security; (3) the fact that those least responsible for climate change are bearing the brunt of its impacts; (4) recognition of heightened competition for scarce resources; (5) acknowledgement of climate change as a threat multiplier and one among many factors that impact global peace and security; (6) the need for further cooperation and upholding current agreements (e.g., the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals); and (7) the need for better data, analysis, and analytical techniques for understanding climate security risks at local, regional, and international levels.

Nevertheless, the Security Council faces pushback from some member states wary of the idea of linking climate change and security. These divisions surfaced clearly during the most recent meeting on the topic in February 2021. China, Russia, and South Africa minced no words in expressing their disinterest in linking climate change to peace and security in the Council. There’s “no direct linkage between” climate and security, said the spokesperson for China, followed later by the spokesperson for Russia, who similarly noted, “there is no conclusion universally recognized and scientifically substantiated that climate change has an impact on armed conflicts.” As permanent members of the Security Council, China and Russia hold a great deal of power, which has de facto kept the Group of Friends on the margins of Security Council business.

With the addition of the United States, however, the Group of Friends on Climate Security has three permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, along with France and the United Kingdom. Having three of the five permanent members adds some legitimacy. Not only this but Secretary of Defense Austin’s January 27 memo on climate and security and the U.K. Ministry of Defense’s recent climate security strategy should provide additional momentum, especially as they are implemented and result in investments and changes in ways of doing business.

Stay tuned: Estonia takes over the Security Council Presidency in June, followed by France in July. Both Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and French President Emmanuel Macron are proponents of climate security. Prime Minister Kallas, for example, called on the Council to further discuss the topic and “make it a part of our security policy planning,” while President Macron echoed calls for the appointment of a Special Envoy for Climate Security. So it could be a busy summer for climate security at the United Nations.