Statement at the High-Level Arria-Formula Meeting on Climate Finance for Sustaining Peace and Security

Thank you Mr. President,

I congratulate you on the United Arab Emirates' presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of March.

I also thank you, Excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change and Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, for inviting me to participate in this important meeting.

Mr. President,

In addition to pressing security challenges such as terrorism and insurgency, the effects of climate change are profoundly damaging the most fragile and conflict-affected countries.

Decades of experience and research have proved that development is a key driver of peace and stability. Development is completely dependent on public and private investment, yet these dry up due to the heightened risks that accompany conflict afflicted regions.

This meeting is an opportunity to explore whether climate finance can help close the gap between conflict and development, and by doing so advance global climate change adaptation as well as stabilisation and peace.

Mr President, unfortunately, ambitious action on climate adaptation in the developing world is lacking. Past commitments, including the 100 billion dollars per year in financing made in Paris, which only cover a small proportion of the necessary response, are being reversed. We must urge the countries that made those commitments to live up to them if the global climate action agenda is to succeed.

It also bears repeating that climate change mitigation efforts in the Global North should not cut off the development path for the Global South. The risk of this happening, present trends holding, is high. It would be catastrophic from an international peace and security point of view. An important metric to keep an eye on that tells us of the direction of travel is the availability of affordable, accessible and at scale energy in developing countries.

If there is one urgent message that the Security Council can send to the climate change mitigation leadership, it is that development in the Global South is the most important pillar in securing global peace and stability.

Having said this Mr President, it is also true that there is plenty that we can still succeed in implementing successfully right away. I will spend the short time I have left to offer recommendations for an action-oriented approach that we can all embrace.

We need to build a bridge from the supply and the demand sides of the equation. That is to say, between those with climate finance funds, and with the vision the responsibility to invest them in fragile and conflict afflicted situations, and those who are responsible for the policies, regulations and business models that enable investment to take action on the ground where it is needed.

First: Let us ease our way into action at scale by utilising grants for climate financing in the most vulnerable countries and regions. The grants should be last-mile appropriate, willing to take risks to learn, and embracing existing or quickly implementable initiatives that are designed with local expertise and buy-in.

Existing efforts in Kenya to upgrade the health and quality of livestock owned by pastoralist communities, in a way that is sensitive to resource conflict dynamics, can have an enormous effect if scaled up. This is only one example, and I am sure more are available in other countries.

The IGAD Conflict and Early Warning Mechanism, and its local public and civil society partners, also retains substantial experience in mediating conflicts caused by extreme weather events. They have implemented, at the local level, relatively modest market and economic projects that bring conflicting communities to the peace table. Their expertise needs to be connected to investment, and its government and community driven mechanisms can do the rest.

Secondly, we must resource the development of platforms by states, the private sector and civil society that shape investment-ready public and private projects that deliver impact in the areas we are discussing. They can be developed through locally relevant and yet global-facing Environmental, Social and Governance criteria. We believe that UN bodies like UNDP and the Global Compact can work with national level experts and institutions to build a path for impactful investment into such platforms.

Third: We can invest in UN peacekeeping that utilises adaptation to climate change driven extreme weather condition to further their mandates. The ability of peacekeeping missions to lower levels of violence, and build confidence in national peacebuilding in areas afflicted by conflicts for pasture, water, and other resources, would be vastly improved by responding to the local dynamics.

The Kenya Defence Forces have developed and deployed an 'Environmental Soldier' initiative that can be inserted in peacekeeping missions to positive effect. The department has trained personnel able to work with communities in reforestation, delivering water in drought conditions, and shaping these actions to lower conflict risks between communities.

As the Security Council appreciates, the conflicts between pastoralists and herders are a major driver of the insecurity in the Sahel and Lake Chad region. The population movements, violence and demands on governance that they produce are a key entry point for the Jihadist groups threatening state continuity, not to mention murdering thousands. We believe that an environmental peacekeeper programme in MINUSMA, to mention only one peacekeeping mission, anchored by Kenyan expertise and climate finance can make a real difference.

We are ready as a government to offer training and benchmarking in what we think is an innovative and increasingly relevant skillset. This we can do with partners at scale to ensure that local security actions in the countries and regions most affected by climate change have the expertise and personnel to deliver peace-friendly adaptation.

Mr. President, I commend the UAE for hosting this meeting and hope that we will work together to bring to life some of the recommendations we have made here.

I thank you for your attention.