(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
with the author: Hovstein Kviseth
This is the fifth time Norway has participated as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, also called the world's most powerful space. Norway will sit here for two years. To date, Norway has contributed more than 60 contributions to the Security Council.
Erna Solberg said last year that Norway will use its place to strengthen international cooperation for peace and security.[1] Norway has selected four issues that are prioritized in this context. This is protection of civilians in conflict and disasters, inclusion of women, peace diplomacy and climate and security.[2]
In the Security Council, Norway will use the expertise the Foreign Service has acquired through a large number of peace processes in recent decades. It should then also just be missing. This type of expertise is in demand in the Security Council. Given Norway's experience in peace processes since 1993, this is also one of the country's best cards to play. The fact that in other countries Norway is known as one of the leading peace brokers in the world is also in the country's self-interest.
Peace-relevant and complex relationships between climate effects such as increased rainfall,
change of waterways, more drought in some places and less drought in other places, and increased risk of
extreme weather of many kinds.
The reputation Norway has built for several decades through efforts for peace mediation has proved particularly valuable in foreign policy. The brand Norway has as a "nation of peace" also comes largely from here. This has contributed to the small state of Norway being invited to the big tables. "Norway pushes above its weight", as an American diplomat put it – that Norway is invited into higher weight classes, is often due to our reputation as a peace broker.
Norway's ambition is to use its voice in the Council to strengthen cooperation between the Security Council and the UN Peacebuilding Commission. This is to promote peace diplomacy, but also to put preventive diplomacy on the Security Council's agenda. Norway therefore invites peace builders and human rights defenders to brief the Security Council on various issues.
Women and civilians in conflict
Norway's other main part of the Security Council is the work of including women in peace processes. Although few women take an active part in hostilities, women are hard hit by conflicts. The risk of sexual violence is often high and keeps women away from school, work or important work, such as fetching water for the family. Many men are killed in conflicts, and therefore the responsibility for family and reconstruction of the country falls more on women. Norway is working for more women to participate in peace negotiations and peace processes, for the number of female peace mediators to be increased, for the gender perspective to be integrated into peace agreements, and for sexual violence in conflict to be addressed in this context.
Norway will also work with the following in the Security Council: protection of civilians in conflict and disasters; children and armed conflict; protection of refugees and internally displaced persons; better protection of health and humanitarian workers in conflict areas; as well as combating conflict-related hunger.
Norwegian emphasis on climate in the Security Council
Norway's fourth main priority in the Security Council is «climate and security». This is a more difficult topic. The initiative seems less obvious than peace diplomacy, women and the civilian population in war and crisis.
The UN Security Council has set up an expert group to work on "climate and security" in the country situations they discuss. Here, Norway has a shared leadership responsibility and will also ensure that climate-related security threats are addressed in the Security Council when the situations in different countries or the UN's peacekeeping operations are discussed.
Stuck conflicts are also affected by climate change, and in such cases the changes will
also involve opportunities for peace.
Norway's starting point is briefly summarized that climate change (eg deforestation, drought, precipitation, warming…) coincides with violent conflict. That is, societies that are characterized by war are often also challenged by climate change. This is something other than a causal connection. Norway also does not claim that climate change in itself triggers war. Despite this, the coincidence of war and local effects of climate change seems to be absolutely central for Norway in the Security Council.
Climate change can be a driver for both war and peace, depending on the context or context in which you study. However, by introducing "climate and security" as relevant on the agenda, far more emphasis is placed on how climate change contributes to uncertainty and threats than the possibilities of change. However, there is room to be constructive in this: Assuming that entrenched conflicts are also affected by climate change, climate change in such cases could also mean opportunities for peace.
Norway places particular emphasis on climate change as the underlying cause of various conflicts. This may increase our understanding of conflicts, but as we will see examples below, this need not be the case either. These connections turn out to be far less obvious than most of us assume.
Political disagreement over "climate and security"
In the Security Council, there is clear disagreement about the role of climate change in war and conflict. "Climate and security" is also nothing new on the Security Council's agenda, as it is now 14 years since the United Kingdom first put it on the Council's agenda. The British are today on Norway's side in the case, together with Sweden and the Biden administration in particular. But there is also a completely different side to this case, and it is rarely portrayed in the Norwegian media, even if the lines of conflict are deep and clear.
Of the 23 members of the Security Council, China, India and Russia in particular are skeptical about including "climate and security" on the Council's agenda for peacebuilding and peacekeeping. Russia has been particularly clear in its warnings against recognizing global warming as a threat to global security in general. This is because it draws attention from other underlying important causes of war and conflict. In the discussion on "climate and security" in the Security Council on 2011 February, Russia said that the Security Council should not engage in climate work that other UN bodies are better suited to. Furthermore, the Russians emphasized that the connection between climate change and conflict does not provide a global connection between climate and security. As an example, Russia uses NATO's bombing of Libya in XNUMX, where the intervention had major consequences for the instability in Mali and other parts of the Sahel over the past decade. Russia's point is that the chaos created by the bombing of Libya, and all the flow of weapons from civil war-torn Libya to the south, has been very destabilizing on already weak states in the Sahel. At the same time, it is difficult to see that climate change in the same period would have any corresponding negative effect on the region's conflict dynamics. "Climate and security" thus contributes to incorrect emphasis on the Security Council's work in the region, according to Russia.
If peacebuilding is our goal, climate policy in itself is ineffective. On the other hand
resilience to a changing climate is the goal, peacebuilding is complete
essential.
China often supports Russia's line in this, but also points out that the role of the Security Council in this matter must fall within the scope of the Security Council. India expresses more fundamental objections and emphasized in the meeting that there is no accepted methodology that shows that climate change causes conflict. We will take a closer look at this in the following.
But first: Norway is tackling the issue from the opposite side and will "contribute to a greater understanding of the connection between climate and international peace and security". Here, professional communities in Norway, Sweden and Germany are involved in politics. Norway is also working to ensure that climate change in the Security Council's resolutions is described as an "underlying cause" of various conflicts.[3] This is less controversial, although this policy is not necessarily professionally sound either – something we come to.
Too much emphasis on climate?
When Prime Minister Solberg gave his speech to the Security Council on 23 February this year with the title «climate and security», little concrete came to light about which climate effects are considered to be driving behind specific conflicts. The only tangible Solberg relied on was the Sahel belt in Africa. Here, Norway claims that climate change affects people's living conditions and contributes to increased competition for scarce resources. It is also claimed that deforestation leads to conflict. It is also claimed that climate change in Somalia and the Lake Chad area has enabled increased recruitment to armed groups.[4]
One who challenges this overall picture is Professor Tor A. Benjaminsen at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He points out that the crisis in the Sahel is complex, with various political reasons. Despite this, the idea that conflicts are climate-created abounds. This follows from what he calls "climate determinism" – a notion that climate change is one crucial cause of migration and violent conflict.[5] Mike Hulm is a well-known climate scientist who describes the same phenomenon as "climate reductionism".[6] That is, we reduce our understanding of the situation by placing too much emphasis on the role of climate change in what is happening. This does not mean that climate cannot be an underlying cause, but that too much emphasis is placed on this aspect of conflict dynamics.
The Sahel is also the part of the world most often used as an example of climate deterministic explanations for unrest. Benjaminsen complicates the approach by pointing out that the climate effects in the region will in practice mean that the total precipitation will increase, and become more concentrated in a shorter rainy season. How this will affect ecology and production systems, we do not yet know enough about. As far as living conditions are concerned, Benjaminsen believes it is reasonable to assume that resident farmers will find it more difficult than shepherds, who are more flexible and can move. Climate change also makes it more likely that overgrowth in the Sahel will continue, than that there will be desertification. The risk that deforestation will lead to increased conflict in this area is therefore irrelevant, given the climatic conditions.
Benjaminsen also gives a picture of the political dynamics of climate determinism. After researching Mali for 20 years, he visited the country together with Minister for Development Aid Solheim in 2008. The Prime Minister's visit was aimed at exactly how climate change challenges Mali and the Sahel more generally. Solheim gave 15 speeches on the topic, and this was also the first time Benjaminsen as an experienced researcher heard local voices with prepared speeches on just this. Benjaminsen's own experience with locals' understanding of the country's security threats was rather about corruption, Tuareg uprisings in northern Mali and that the country has become a transit state for smuggling people and goods.[7] Here there may be other far more important explanations for weak states in the Sahel's instability. Perhaps it will be easier to contribute to peacebuilding than – in the Security Council – to discuss emission cuts and climate policy.
In the Norwegian political discourse, however, the notion that a warmer climate will mean more war and conflict seems almost predominant. The perception leads the policy towards some solutions rather than others. The peace-relevant and complex relationships between climate effects such as increased rainfall, changes in waterways, more drought in some places and less drought elsewhere, plant growth and increased water uptake in plants due to increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and increased risk of extreme weather of many kinds, are every element of this. Of course, climate is relevant to peace, but the connections are not simple, nor do they just go in one direction.
[1] The Government's press release 17.6.20: «Norway elected to the UN Security Council».
[2] Regjeringen.no 20.5.21: «Norwegian priorities in the UN Security Council».
[3] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' press release 8.1 2021: «Norway takes on key leadership roles in the UN Security Council».
[4] The post «Climate and security» is published on Norway in the UN, Norway.no, dated 1. 3.21.
[5] Tor A. Benjaminsen, «The new climate determinism», published in Bistandsaktuelt 14.3.21.
[6] Mike Hulm, "Reducing the Future to Climate: A Story of Climate Determinism and Reductionism," The University of Chicago Press Journals.
[7] Tor A. Benjaminsen, «The new climate determinism», published in Bistandsaktuelt 14.3.21.
