GECHS

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has recently begun talking about the challenge of ‘climate security’, and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that “Global climate change must take its place alongside the threats of conflict, poverty and the proliferation of deadly weapons that have traditionally monopolized first-order political attention”. Climate change poses clears risks to Australia’s interests in trade, aid and political stability in Asia. This not inconsiderable risk poses some complex challenges to Australian foreign policy. GECHS SSC member Jon Barnett has recently published a policy note exploring the risks climate change poses to security in Asia and the options for Australian foreign policy.

[Download PDF, 172 k]

GEHCS associate Siri Eriksen is the lead author of GECHS Report 2007:1 on climate change adaptation and poverty reduction, prepared for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). The report analyses interactions between poverty and climate change, and recommends measures for incorporating adaptation to climate change in poverty reduction efforts. The main message from the report is the urgency of integrating climate change considerations in all parts of development cooperation, not only in the environmental related activities. Development measures in all sectors influence the vulnerability to climate change of poor people, as well as their capacity to adapt to climatic changes.

A summary in Norwegian can be downloaded here, and paper copies of the report and the Norwegian summary can be provided from the GECHS IPO.

In recent years natural hazards such as hurricanes, floods and droughts have triggered humanitarian disasters that have reversed years of development progress. In the years to come climate change is expected to affect the frequency and magnitude of such hazards, thus increasing the risk of disasters. GECHS and CICERO will host a one-day research and policy workshop to highlight some of the latest international findings on natural disasters and complex emergencies in the context of climate change, with the objective of moving toward a more integrated policy framework.

Speakers include:

• Mark Pelling, Kings College London, UK
• Sumaya Ahmed Zaki Eldeen, University of Khartoum, Sudan
• Ian Christoplos, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
• Lisa Schipper, START, the global change SysTem for Analysis, Research and Training, Thailand
• Mihir R. Bhatt, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, Ahmedabad
• Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
• Madeleen Helmer, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Netherlands
• Siri Eriksen, University of Oslo, Norway

Download the programme or a summary of the workshop. You can also view the keynote speeches by Erik Solheim (32 Mb), Norwegian Minister for International Development, and Karen O’Brien (23 Mb), professor at the University of Oslo.

The workshop will be held Friday, 27 April 2007 from 9:00 to 16:00 in the Forum auditorium at the CIENS Resource Centre, Gaustadalléen 21, in Oslo. Please contact Jennifer West for registration or more information. The workshop is free and open to the public, although registration is limited to a total of 75 participants.

Two policy briefs written by GECHS SSC member Patricia Kameri-Mbote are now available from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In the newest brief of the Navigating Peace series of the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP), Kameri-Mbote lays the historical foundation of water management in the Nile River Basin, and recommends policies for facilitating cooperation among the region’s many water users. In her second brief, published by the Africa Program, she argues that rather than being a source of competition, Africa’s dependence on natural resources can facilitate dialogue and provide a pathway to peacebuilding in the troubled Great Lakes Region.