Climate Security in the German EU-presidency

There is growing evidence about the negative effects global warming has on global stability, security and the risk of conflict, with implications for Africa’s and Europe’s stability and autonomy. Climate change compounds existing security risks, creates new and stronger pressures on communities and governments, and makes peace harder to maintain, achieve and sustain. Both the European Union and the African Union have underlined how climate-related security risks threaten their prosperity and security and both have started to integrate the topic across their regions.

To support the German EU presidency by strengthening EU capacity for climate security, adelphi, E3G, and One World were commissioned by the Federal Foreign Office to co-host two virtual workshops. These activities aimed at building the climate security expertise of EU officials, European member states, and AU officials and member states. At the same time, the workshops served to strengthen AU-EU cooperation on climate security.

The first event focused on senior officials including climate envoys from the EU Commission and Member States in Brussels to discuss a strategy for delivering a “whole-of-EU” approach to climate security in the European neighbourhood and the role of the EU in driving reforms in international institutions. The second event focused on the strategic partnership between the EU and the African Union, its member states and other African institutions to better address climate-fragility risks in Africa. adelphi helped organise the events and prepared background papers on their topics. as well as documented the results of the workshop in a short policy paper including recommendations for the EU and AU.