A draft resolution, aimed at broadening the mandate of the UN Security Council to cover several peace and security issues linked to climate change, and supported by the majority of the international community, was set aside on Monday, December 13. Russia has vetoed it, although 12 of the 15 members are in favor.
“Time is not on our side”, had declared before the vote Geraldine Byrne Nason, the ambassador of Ireland, co-author of the text, the first on this subject ever submitted to the vote in the Council. “Climate change is an amplifier of the factors underlying insecurity, added Abdou Abarry, the ambassador of Niger, the other co-author of the resolution. Because we live it every day, we say it. “ More than 70% of the Council’s agenda concerns African issues, Africa and the Sahel especially, being particularly concerned by climate change, it was important for the African continent that the Council can finally be seized for crises security issues related to climate change.
Knowing Russia’s reservations to broaden the Council’s mandate, this text proposed modest initiatives, and was supported by 113 countries: the will of the majority of the international community was not in doubt. “He was simply asking the UN secretariat to consider climate change more systematically, explains Benjamin Pohl, in charge of climate diplomacy and security at the Adelphi think tank. It didn’t threaten anyone, it cost nothing. “
A text above all symbolic
The resolution called for a report by the secretary-general within two years on the influence of climate change on crises managed by the Council, and more training of peacekeeping teams on the subject. The creation of a post of special climate representative at the UN was abandoned during the negotiation of the text between the fifteen members of the Security Council. “This text was above all symbolic, continues Benjamin Pohl. It was starting to say that climate change had an impact not only on health or the economy, but also on international security. “
It is well known at the United Nations that Russia refuses in principle any expansion of the Security Council’s mandate, anxious to limit its field of action. India also voted against the resolution, arguing that global warming is linked to an issue of economic development. “India prefers that the issue remain the prerogative of other bodies over which it has permanent control, rather than in the Council, where it only sits until next year”, decrypts Ashish Pradhan of the International Crisis Group. As for China, which usually follows the Russian line of refusing to alter the Council’s mandate, it only abstained – the majority of members of the group of 77 developing countries to which it belongs having supported the text, she couldn’t go against it.
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