European peatlands could turn from carbon sinks to sources as a quarter have reached levels of dryness unsurpassed in a record stretching back 2,000 years, according to a new study. This trend of “widespread” and “substantial” drying corresponds to recent climate change, both natural and human-caused, but may also be exacerbated by the peatlands being used for agriculture and fuel.
As global temperatures rise, warmer air and oceans are expected to fuel stronger hurricanes, with dangerous consequences.
Climate change, civil conflict, and violent extremism are among the most significant threats to global human development, peace, and security. UN-led plans to address all three require immediate action to prevent future crises, yet crucial investments may not yield tangible results for years to come—well beyond democratic term limits. Jonathan Rozen reflects on tensions between long-term planning and short-term action.
While diplomats in Bonn work on the operating manual for the Paris Agreement, Washington ponders withdrawing from climate action.
The Climate Diplomacy platform has been dedicated to monitoring and supporting the climate debate, by gathering and promoting stories, which touch on different aspects of climate diplomacy. Thus, to end the year on a positive note and maintain the motivation for 2017, we’ve complied our top ten climate diplomacy stories published on our platform over the past year.
Recognizing the risks to development posed by climate change and lessons learned on integrating environmental governance and peacebuilding, implementation of Liberia’s National Adaptation Plan (NAP) with cooperation from climate finance institutions offers an opportunity to plan and create an environment for sustainable peace, explains Jonathan Rozen.
We’ve compiled a list of our key publications touching upon different dimensions of climate diplomacy. Sit back, enjoy the read and we wish all our readers all the best in 2017!
Sustaining peace in Kenya’s Kajiado County requires looking beyond climate change and recognizing the role of land privatization in pastoralists’ vulnerability. Author Jonathan Rozen illustrates how climate change acts as a threat multiplier, exacerbating challenges such as economic precariousness, water shortage and violent land disputes.
In his speech at COP22, U.S. State Secretary John Kerry highlighted that "there’s nothing partisan about climate change for the world scientists who are near unanimous in their conclusion that climate change is real, it is happening, human beings for the most part are causing it, and we will have increasing catastrophic impacts on our way of life if we don’t take the dramatic steps necessary to reduce the carbon footprint of our civilization." At COP23 in November 2017, he wants to attend as "Citizen Kerry".
This article finds evidence that “risk of armed-conflict outbreak is enhanced by climate related disaster occurrence in ethnically fractionalized countries”. The authors state that while each conflict is the result of a very context-specific mixture of factors, natural disasters triggered by anthropogenic climate change might act as a threat multiplier.
For the abstract and full article please see here.
While natural resource development can generate economic success, it can also increase the likelihood of conflict, particularly in Africa. Ongoing violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta is a good example of the so-called “resource curse” in action. In response, African governments continue to grapple with how best to use their resource endowments to foster both economic opportunity and peace. At a time of much soul-searching for the United Nations, there is a unique opportunity to put responsible and effective resource development at the heart of African peacebuilding. But how might local communities take greater ownership of these processes?
In this report, Luca Bergamaschi, Nick Mabey, Jonathan Gaventa and Camilla Born from E3G explore practical actions that EU foreign policy institutions could undertake to manage climate risk and an orderly global transition. Read on for a summary of the report here.
Source: IRIN News
YENAGOA, 4 Jun 2006 (IRIN) - Eight foreign oil workers abducted by gunmen from an offshore rig in Nigeria were freed by their captors on Sunday, Nigerian authorities said.
Source: Platform London
by Ben Amunwa