On 19 November in Dhaka, adelphi partnered with the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) to hold a roundtable and discussion on climate change and fragility risks in South Asia.
International political boundaries are arbitrary creations. Today’s borders are better described as imaginary lines on maps, rather than hard barriers between states. Often using mountains, rivers, or other geographical landmarks, modern borders are entrenched in historic tradition rather than logic and fact. As a result, today’s international borders are poorly equipped to handle modern challenges, in particular climate change, which has already begun to threaten the most important state resource, fresh water.
Access to water can be a critical resource for cooperation, but also a source of tension. Identifying risks before their onset is crucial for the efficiency and economic feasibility of intervention strategies, but how can these risks be measured? To address this conundrum, adelphi together with several partners convened a side-event at World Water Week, which connected experts developing analytical tools to policy makers in the water sector.
As disasters wreak havoc all over South Asia, health impacts have increasingly emerged as a major concern for communities and governments in the region. It underscores the need for concerted efforts towards building synergies between the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, particularly now, in the post-disaster reconstruction phase, to ensure “building back better” and future disaster prevention.
A problem is looming. Most water infrastructure isn’t designed to meet the demands of the increasingly volatile world that climate change is producing. Our modern landscape requires a reconceptualization of infrastructure’s demands and needs that often defies convention. And nowhere is a flexible and responsive approach more crucial than in water infrastructure, where we are experiencing unprecedented changes in flows and increasing pressures on consumption, according to Wellspring: Source Water Resilience and Climate Adaptation, a new report from the Global Resilience Partnership, the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation and The Nature Conservancy. The report explores some ways practitioners can take a new approach to source water protection that would enhance resilience and help sustain communities and ecosystems in a shifting climate.
Iraq is on the verge of an environmental breakdown, and climate change is not helping. The country's fragile environment and the increasing scarcity of natural resources — particularly water — are a result of poor environmental management, as well as several political and historical factors. However, as climate change impacts add to the existing pressures, the environmental collapse turns into a security issue.
Growing water scarcity and climate change effects are having a profound global impact resulting in an urgent need for increased dialogue and cooperation over shared water resources. In this policy brief, the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) highlights the potential of water diplomacy as an approach for forwarding peace and the better management of transboundary waters.
World Water Week is organized by SIWI and is the annual focal point for global water issues, gathering leading water experts, decision-makers, and business leaders. The 2019 theme is “Water for society: Including all”.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) will host the fourth Stockholm Security Conference (SSC 19) on 3 October 2019, under the theme ‘Conflict and technology: Now and in the future.’ Through plenary and breakout sessions, the conference will look at how the nature of conflict is changing today and how technology impacts conflict.
Climate change and its disruptive impact on water resources are increasingly recognised as threat multipliers that exacerbate conflict in areas around the world. The workshop will gather practitioners from the MENA region to discuss the role that civil society can play in fostering environmental cooperation and increasing the resilience of their communities vis-à-vis climate change and conflict.
A multi-sectoral and multilateral approach to South Asia's rivers could provide sustainable development, but it needs to include those already marginalised by a narrow development path.
For researchers looking into global security dynamics, it is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook climate change as a threat multiplier in conflict situations. While climate change may not directly cause conflict, it may be inextricably woven into pre-existing conflicts of power, ethnicity, and economic interest. Understading the role of climate-related impacts on security is therefore crucial for global peace.
The European Sustainable Development Week (ESDW) is a European-wide initiative to stimulate and make visible activities, projects and events that promote sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). On this occasion, the Federal Foreign Office and 23 international embassies in Berlin, Germany, are engaging with the 2030 Agenda on the theme "Diplomacy for Sustainability" and will present their work on the SDGs.