Emerging Lessons from Implementing Climate-Related Peace and Security Mandates
Six of the ten largest United Nations-led peace operations in 2020 were located in countries that are the most exposed to climate change. Both UN peacekeeping operations and special political missions are increasingly mandated by the UN Security Council to consider and respond to climate-related security risks. In response, UN peace operations have tried to more effectively respond to climate-related peace and security challenges by adapting existing approaches and exploring innovative new ways in which to operationalize these tasks. Efforts to translate these climate and environmental-related mandates into policies and practices are a work in progress, and can benefit from ongoing learning, monitoring, and adaptation. In this regard, lessons and good practices for integrating climate-related security risks into policies, analysis, activities, and reporting are beginning to emerge.
Using satellite data and machine learning to study conflict-induced environmental and socioeconomic destruction in data-poor conflict areas: The ca...
This paper studies socioeconomic and environmental changes in the neighboring areas Bangladesh-Myanmar border from 2012 to 2019, thus covering the period before and after the 2017 Rakhine conflict in Myanmar and outflux of refugees across the border to Bangladesh. Given the scarcity and costliness of traditional data collection methods in such conflict areas, the paper uses a novel methodological model based on very-high-resolution satellite imagery, nighttime satellite imagery, and machine-learning algorithms to generate reliable and reusable data for comparative assessment of the impacts of the Rakhine conflict. Assessments of welfare and environmental risks using this approach can be accurate and scalable across different regions and times when other data are unavailable. Key findings are: the general livelihood situation has worsened and income sources shrunk in Rakhine; forced migration damaged the ecologically fragile regions in the two countries; the destruction of aquaculture wetland ecosystems is observed in Rakhine; the deforestation rate reached 20% in Rakhine and 13% on the Bangladeshi side of the border. The results can provide guidance to policymakers and international actors as they work to repatriate the victims of the conflict in Rakhine and minimize the conflict’s security and environmental consequences. The methodology can be applied to other data-poor conflict and refugee areas in the world.
How climate insecurity could trigger more conflict in Somalia
Climate change effects such as droughts, flash floods, erratic rainfall, disruption to the monsoon seasons, strong winds, cyclones, sandstorms, dust storms and increased temperature are being experienced across Somalia. These effects are affecting livelihoods, and contributing to local grievances and community tensions.
How climate insecurity could trigger more conflict in Somalia
Climate change effects such as droughts, flash floods, erratic rainfall, disruption to the monsoon seasons, strong winds, cyclones, sandstorms, dust storms and increased temperature are being experienced across Somalia. These effects are affecting livelihoods, and contributing to local grievances and community tensions.
How climate insecurity could trigger more conflict in Somalia
Climate change effects such as droughts, flash floods, erratic rainfall, disruption to the monsoon seasons, strong winds, cyclones, sandstorms, dust storms and increased temperature are being experienced across Somalia. These effects are affecting livelihoods, and contributing to local grievances and community tensions.
The impact of climate change on UN Peacekeeping operations
Follow this webinar to learn more about how climate change impacts UN peacekeeping operations.
New study shows 95% South Sudanese depend on climate sensitive livelihood
The collaborative project undertaken by the Norwegian institute of international affairs, is aimed at achieving UN climate agenda. The institute has been conducting its research for close to ten years and it will complete its mandate in 2023. Lead researcher on the South Sudan fact sheet, Dr Andrew E. Yaw Tchie says they have identified livelihood decline, migration and mobility, military and armed actors and political and economic exploitation as pathways negatively affecting climate, Peace and Security.
Red Arctic? Affective Geopolitics and the 2007 Russian Flag-planting Incident in the Central Arctic Ocean
This chapter discusses visual representation and Arctic geopolitics, exploring how the image of the flag planted on the Arctic seabed by Russia has persisted as a core visual image of Arctic politics. Using Google Image Search, we compare the pervasiveness of this image with a small selectin of potential image-events of the Arctic, representing different storylines of Arctic politics, and find that they remain comparatively marginal. The chapter considers why the flag-planting image remains so central to Arctic geopolitics by briefly discussion reception and re-use of the flag-planting image in Canada, Russia and the United States.