Climate, Peace & Security 2022: Strategies for dealing with climate-related conflict risks

The climate crisis is one of the central challenges of the 21st century. It leads to social unrest and threatens livelihoods, stability and prosperity. In addition to the direct impact on human security, climate impacts are often a driver of armed conflict, especially in fragile states and regions.  Sustainable peace therefore requires concrete and coherent strategies on how to minimise the impact of climate-related conflict risks. An important step in this direction is closer cooperation between decision-makers from diplomacy, development cooperation, humanitarian aid and defence. It is also imperative that activities aimed at conflict prevention and climate protection or adaptation are better interlinked in the future and are more strongly oriented towards the experiences and recommendations of local actors.

Systematic climate foreign and security policy

Within the framework of the project "Climate, Peace and Security", adelphi supports these goals and thereby a systematically conceived climate foreign and security policy through applied research, public communication, capacity building and international dialogue formats. As part of this project funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, adelphi organises in particular:

• the fourth Berlin Climate and Security Conference (BCSC) in October 2022; 
• the activities of the Climate Security Expert Network (CSEN), which supports the anchoring of the topic of climate security in the work of the United Nations; 
• studies and concept papers to close existing knowledge and narrative gaps on the topic of climate security; 
• lectures and trainings by staff members, for example within the framework of the European Security and Defence College (ESDC); and 
• online offers and digital communication, in particular:
  • the Climate Diplomacy Platform with an integrated 
  • Factbook on environment, conflict and cooperation and 
  • interactive online exhibition, as well as
  • climate and conflict-related podcasts and short videos, and
  • regular newsletters, as well as the promotion of relevant information on Twitter.