Climate, Peace and Security
Expected Council Action
In November, the Council is expected to hold a briefing on “Climate and security—environmental impact of armed conflict and climate driven security risks” under the “Threats to international peace and security” agenda item.
The anticipated briefers are Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP); Charles C. Jalloh, Professor of Law at the University of Miami and member of the International Law Commission; and a civil society representative.
Key Recent Developments
While this month’s briefing will be the Council’s first formal meeting on climate, peace and security in 2025, several Council members have highlighted this issue in informal ways throughout the year. Thus far in 2025, the Informal Expert Group on Climate, Peace and Security (IEG)—which is co-chaired by Guyana, Panama, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and Slovenia—has met to discuss the effects of climate change on peace and security in several country- and region-specific situations, often prior to formal council meetings or mandate renewals on the relevant files. These include meetings on Afghanistan (27 February); the Horn of Africa in the context of UN Peace Operations, focusing on Somalia and South Sudan (11 April); the Central Africa region (10 June); Haiti (14 July); West Africa and the Sahel (4 August); and Libya (23 October). (An IEG meeting is also planned for 3 November on the Central African Republic).
In 2025, Council members that are supporters of the joint pledges related to climate, peace and security—Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Panama, ROK, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and the UK—have held “stake-ins” prior to Council meetings on Yemen (6 March), the Great Lakes region (16 April), the Protection of civilians (22 May), Libya (24 June), South Sudan (18 August), and UN peace operations (9 September). During each of these stake-ins, the joint pledgers—who have committed to systematically integrate climate change, peace and security into the Council’s work—deliver a statement describing the implications of climate change on the topic of the respective meetings.
On 23 May, Slovenia (together with Algeria, Panama, and Sierra Leone) convened an Arria-formula meeting titled “Freshwater Resources and Related Infrastructure under Attack: Protecting Water in Armed Conflict—Protecting Civilian Lives”. Several non-Council members—Costa Rica, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Mozambique, the Philippines, Senegal, Switzerland, and Viet Nam—supported the meeting. Melita Gabrič, Slovenia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, chaired the meeting. The briefers were: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply Operations Ted Chaiban, and Regional Head of Programmes for Geneva Call in Africa Mehwash Ansari.
The briefers addressed the devastating effects of conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, among others, on the water infrastructure relied upon by civilian populations. Spoljaric Egger referenced ICRC guidance calling for incorporating legal norms related to water into military doctrine and training. Chaiban called on the Security Council to include, where relevant, water mediation in peace operation mandates and for the Secretary-General to include references to attacks on water infrastructure in his reports on a consistent basis. Ansari advocated sustained monitoring of violations of international humanitarian law related to water infrastructure.
On 23 July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion on the “Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change”, which was requested by UN General Assembly resolution 77/276 of 29 March 2023. Vanuatu, responding to advocacy from Pacific Island youth, spearheaded the campaign, which culminated in the adoption of the resolution. The advisory opinion found that states have an obligation “to prevent significant harm to the environment by acting with due diligence and to use all means at their disposal to prevent activities carried out within their jurisdiction or control from causing significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment, in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”. UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the opinion of the court, calling it a “victory for our planet, for climate justice and for the power of young people to make a difference”.
On 24 September, Guterres and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva convened the UN Climate Summit 2025 in New York on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly session. During the summit, nearly 100 member states signalled their commitment to finalising or implementing their climate targets ahead of the 30th UN climate conference (COP30), which will take place from 10 – 21 November in Belém, Brazil. It is expected to focus on the “efforts needed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, the presentation of new national action plans (NDCs) and the progress on the finance pledges made at COP29”.
Women, Peace and Security
In a 28 October update, UN Women identified the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda as a comprehensive framework to address the cross-cutting challenges posed by climate change. The update notes that the effects of climate change “reach across all sectors of society, increasing the risk of security threats, conflicts, instability, and societal vulnerabilities”. It stresses the importance of understanding the gender dimension of climate-related security risks in order to avoid interventions that deepen existing inequalities but instead identify opportunities to advance gender equality, enhance climate resilience, and sustain peace. Among other recommendations, UN Women called for establishing protection mechanisms for women peacebuilders, environmental human rights defenders, and climate activists, and for integrating gender into climate risk assessments, policies and programmes.
Key Issues and Options
Key issues for the Council on climate, peace and security include the importance of:
- developing synergies between the Council and other UN bodies in addressing the negative effects of climate change on international peace and security;
- supporting the efforts of UN peace operations (and other UN actors in the field) to address climate-related threats to peace and security in ways that sustain peace and build resilience; and
- promoting effective collaborations between the UN and regional and local actors in this regard.
Another key issue is how the UN’s liquidity crisis—and cost reductions associated with UN80, a reform initiative designed to make the UN system more “effective, cost-efficient, and responsive”—will affect the ability of the UN system to address to the peace and security challenges related to climate change.
One option is for the Informal Expert Group on Climate, Peace and Security Council to organise a visiting mission to one or more regions on the Council’s agenda that focuses on the threats posed by climate change to peace and security and generates thinking about how the Council can best address these threats.
Another option would be for the joint pledgers on climate, peace and security to organise an informal meeting with the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), the UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO), UNEP, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and the Peacebuilding Commission, among other UN entities, to strategise on ways that different parts of the UN system can collaborate most effectively to address challenges related to climate, peace and security at a time of significant fiscal constraints.
Council and Wider Dynamics
The Council has been discussing the implications of climate change on peace and security since 2007. Most Council members have traditionally been supportive of the Council’s work on this issue, although a minority of the body’s members have consistently expressed scepticism. The difficult Council dynamics on climate change, peace and security have prevented the adoption of a thematic outcome on this issue in recent years; the sole product on climate, peace and security was a presidential statement in 2011.
At present, most of the elected members are supportive of Council engagement on climate, peace and security, as reflected by the fact that seven of them have joined the joint pledges. Many of these members have tried in recent years to strengthen the language on climate, peace and security in Council products, but have faced resistance from some of the permanent members.
Among the permanent members, although France and the UK support the Council’s work on this issue, China, Russia, and the US have strong reservations. China and Russia have consistently maintained that climate change is primarily a development issue that does not generally fall within the Council’s mandated responsibilities. In his 23 September remarks to the General Assembly, US President Donald Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.
Notwithstanding such scepticism, many heads of state and government, especially from developing countries, explicitly referred to climate change as an existential threat in their statements to the General Assembly during high-level week in September.
UN DOCUMENT ON CLIMATE, PEACE AND SECURITY
| Security Council Presidential Statement | |
| 20 July 2011S/PRST/2011/15 | This was a presidential statement on climate change. |
