The United Nations Security Council, the supreme global body on issues of security and peace, will debate climate change for the first time on April 17. The United Kingdom wants the issue to be considered a matter of global concern, and will have Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett preside over the debate. In March, when the UK announced their intention to bring the issue to the agenda,China and Russia expressed some opposition to the holding the debate.Meanwhile, the United States had no opposition to considering the issue at the Security Council.
In preparation for the debate, the UK has circulated a concept paper arguing that climate change could provoke new wars, change borders, disrupt energy supplies and force mass migration. The paper outlines six areas where climate change could affect global security: border disputes, migration, energy supplies, other resource shortages, societal stress and humanitarian crises–with some estimates that up to 200 million people could be displaced by the middle of the century. (Image source: AP)
About Juan
Juan Hoffmaister has been part of SustainUS since 2004 . Originally from Costa Rica, Juan is devoted to improve global climate policy to protect vulnerable communities. Juan has a BA Human Ecology with emphasis in Environmental Health and Policy from College of the Atlantic, where he studied as a Davis Scholar. Juan believes in an interdisciplinary approach to solving the climate challenge. He has recently completed research on the role of Emissions Trading and international standards to reduce GHG emissions through market-based mechanisms and the role of the GEF-UNDP Small Grants Program in improving access to renewable energy and methane capture. He is currently working to improve disaster preparedness measures for small islands, particularly Fiji and Kiribati in the South Pacific, and he will be soon working on community adaptation measures in coastal Vietnam as as part of a Watson Fellowship.
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Are there organizations for helping citizens around the world to lobby the United Nations? There could be all sorts of avenues for public influence at the United Nations and other world bodies, but I don’t know of any orgs. that actively cultivate and use those avenues.