Water is a critical resource everywhere, but in the Middle East, it is a defining issue. Changing demographics, poor management and climate change are pummelling the region’s already alarming water security situation. EcoPeace Middle East’s brand new report ‘A Green Blue Deal for the Middle East’ taps into water as a make-or-break issue for regional cooperation, economic development, and even for the future of peace negotiations.
This report seeks to inform Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian policy makers, and the understanding of international stakeholders, as they work to meet climate-related challenges in the Middle East. The authors’ assessment is that a deal that gives emphasis to the importance of water issues in the region is a feasible and effective policy approach to an urgent challenge, and one that can serve to address conflict drivers, advance a two state solution and promote trust-building and cooperation in a conflict-mired region.
This brief provides an overview of the state of knowledge on transboundary climate risks in Europe, and explores how this knowledge could help Member States, businesses and the EU as a whole to advance climate-resilient trade and production.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects may exacerbate the risk of climate-related instability across the Middle East in the long term.
Russia’s economic development minister warned last week that the EU’s plans to deploy a carbon tax at the bloc’s borders will not be in line with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, just as Brussels doubled down on the idea of green tariffs.
Over the past 15 years, climate-related risks to peace and stability have risen fast up the European agenda. This report explores the extent to which this policy focus has influenced the international agenda and the degree to which it has translated into improved European responses to the causes and consequences of insecurity in fragile states, proposing three areas of action.
EU Green Week 2020 will address the theme of nature and biodiversity. It will examine how EU policies such as the European Green Deal can help protect and restore nature, and will seek to provide input to COP 15 to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Human mobility plays an important role in the shaping of the world's urban centers. These four infographics, prepared by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), highlight urban human mobility trends, focusing on Africa and Europe.
Paris and Berlin have added their names to a growing list of EU capitals asking for the European Green Deal to be placed at the heart of the EU’s post-pandemic recovery plan.
Several climate security studies have assessed the risks of climate change to security and examined potential foreign policy responses, but the connection between climate change and foreign policy remains underexplored. The new Climate Diplomacy Report of the German Foreign Office takes up the challenge.
The European Green Deal has made the environment and climate change the focus of EU action. Indeed, climate change impacts are already increasing the pressure on states and societies; however, it is not yet clear how the EU can engage on climate security and environmental peacemaking. In this light, and in the run-up to the German EU Council Presidency, adelphi and its partners are organising a roundtable series on “Climate, environment, peace: Priorities for EU external action in the decade ahead”.
As the EU revisits and updates its climate adaptation strategy and deals with fast-changing external relations, it is essential that policy-makers consider the risks of cross-border and cascading impacts and the Union’s range of influence for mitigating and preparing for them. In this short policy brief, the newly launched CASCADES project sets out the challenge.
Africa in general, and the Sahel in particular, is often identified as the region where climate change is most likely to undermine security and trigger violent conflict. This is a function of the region’s history of violent conflict and its perceived vulnerability to climate change.
The Commission plans to propose the first European Climate Law in the first 100 days of its mandate. The Climate Law will set the direction of travel for EU climate action, give predictability for investors, and anchor the irreversibility of the transformation.