The theme for the 2020 Stockholm Forum is "Sustaining Peace in the Time of COVID-19". With this theme, the Forum recognizes the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented. In an interdependent world, national responses to global challenges cannot be conducted in isolation. From climate change, to food insecurity and pandemics, collective global action must be the solution. This is particularly true in conflict situations and fragile states.
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”.
Climate change will shift key coordinates of foreign policy in the coming years and decades. Even now, climate policy is more than just environment policy; it has long since arrived at the centre of foreign policy. The German Foreign Office recently released a report on climate diplomacy recognizing the biggest challenges to security posed by climate change and highlighting fields of action for strengthening international climate diplomacy.
The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will convene the 2020 session of the HLPF from Tuesday, 7 July, to Thursday, 16 July 2020. Following the first five-days, the HLPF's three-day ministerial segment takes place jointly with ECOSOC's high-level segment from Tuesday-Thursday, 14-16 July 2020. The ECOSOC high-level segment concludes on 17 July 2020.
The momentum for climate action we are witnessing is extraordinary. Throughout 2019, millions of people took the streets all around the world to join the youth climate movement's school strike. Yet at this year’s most important climate politics meeting, the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, most governments were far from committing to sufficient action to avert dangerous climate change. Dr. Beatrice Mosello and Dr. Virginie Le Masson explain how to move things forward.
Ten years after committing to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, G20 countries still subsidise coal, oil and gas to the tune of around USD 150 billion annually. Peer review of fossil fuel subsidies help push the G20 forward on this issue, but these reviews need to be followed by action. Subsidy reforms could free up resources that could be channeled back into government programmes and on accelerating a clean energy transition.
In September 2019, Heads of State and Government will gather at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to follow up and comprehensively review progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The event is the first UN summit on the SDGs since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda in September 2015.
The Humanitarian Energy Conference (HEC) is a new global event that convenes the broad community of actors and initiatives worldwide working to improve and expand energy access for displaced and crisis-affected people.
Global progress towards achieving the SDGs is slow, and for many targets, off track. While SDG implementation is primarily a national task and responsibility, it also requires concerted international cooperation. This article presents two arguments why foreign policy could play an important role in their achievement.
No country is immune to natural hazards, but for fragile states, the effects are even more severe. Mostly, conflict prevention and humanitarian aid are seen as more pressing priorities to protect livelihoods there. This pushes efforts of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction to the bottom of the priority list and results in compounded pressures.
Governments must invest new effort and money to prevent climate change from driving new conflicts, according to a diplomatic statement drafted by the German foreign office.