The United Nations Security Council has decided to hold a special session on the “Impacts of Climate Change on International Peace and Security” on Tuesday, February 15, 2023. This marks the first time in the Council’s history that it will dedicate a session to this critical issue.
The session is being convened at the initiative of Guyana, which will hold the Council presidency in February. The opening session will feature a keynote address by Guyana’s President, Mohamed Irfaan Ali.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres will also participate in the session and will address the linkages between climate change, food security, and conflict. Other speakers include Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Beth Bechdol, Deputy Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and a number of technical experts and environmental activists from UN-affiliated organizations.
The upcoming session builds on a previous Security Council meeting held on August 3, 2022, at the initiative of the United States. The meeting focused on food security, famine, and armed conflicts around the world. Reena Ghelani, UN Coordinator for the Fight against Hunger, warned of the serious implications of global food crises for internal stability and inter-state relations.
According to UN reports based on official data, poverty and food insecurity were the primary drivers of armed conflicts worldwide as of the end of 2022. Approximately 117 million people in 19 countries were affected. This was previously highlighted in UN Security Council Resolution 2417, adopted in May 2018, which linked “hunger and conflict” in several regions around the world and warned of the potential for such conflicts to escalate.
On January 11, 2023, members of the UN Security Council signed a “Collective Commitments” paper on environment, peace, and security. The signatories included France, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. South Korea, Guyana, Slovenia, and Sierra Leone have since joined the initiative. In the paper, the signatories commit to integrating environmental issues as a key variable in their discussions of global security and stability in the Security Council.
Since January 29, 2023, Mozambique and Switzerland have co-chaired the UN Group of Experts on Climate Change and Security, which is tasked with studying the relationship between climate change and regional tensions in the Sahel and West Africa. The group has worked closely with Leonardo Santos, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Regional Office for West Africa and the Sahel.
