By Ann-Sophie Böhle
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Aug 29 2024 – The consequences of climate change are disproportionately impacting fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCS). Climate shocks can exacerbate security risks in FCS, conflict and instability compromise a region’s ability to adapt to climate change, leaving its population ever more vulnerable to future climate shocks.

This creates a risk of mutually reinforcing crises spiraling out of control.

By the same token, climate adaptation—measures to increase resilience to climate change—can reduce conflict risks and possibly contribute to lasting peace. This is why international meetings, such as last year’s COP28 climate summit (November 30-December 12 2023) and the (February 27-29 ) World Bank Fragility Forum, have emphasized the need for increased climate action in FCS and for approaches that address climate adaptation and peace simultaneously.

However, climate adaptation in FCS is made particularly challenging by, among other factors, the volatility of the context, security risks to people associated with the work and high costs. Various approaches have been suggested to address some of these issues and to make adaptation projects in FCS more effective—not only in terms of building climate resilience but also in addressing conflict risk.

A review of policy and strategic documents published by five donors that are actively supporting climate adaptation in FCS—the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), the World Bank, and the Dutch and Danish foreign ministries—suggests that such approaches are starting to take root at the policy level. This blog focuses on how five such approaches were reflected in the documents.

Integrated climate–security assessments

It has been argued that integrated assessments covering both climate and conflict dimensions are crucial to designing climate adaptation measures that do not increase conflict risk and ideally help create conditions for lasting peace.

While each of the five donors acknowledges the links between climate change and security at the policy level, only some conduct integrated assessments. For example, a few of the World Bank’s climate change country risk profiles delve into the intersection with security concerns.

Among others the profiles for Ethiopia and Yemen highlight the risk of projected climatic change and extreme weather events worsening tensions around natural resources, food insecurity and migration.

Yet even in these country profiles, the analysis of climate–security links seems somewhat ad hoc; none of the five donors appears to use a systematic method for assessing these links and how adaptation can influence them.

Peace-positive ambitions and activities

A ‘peace-positive’ approach to climate adaptation entails, for example, defining peace-related objectives and indicators of success for an adaptation project. The approach could also include, for example, activities aimed at fostering dialogue, ensuring the equitable distribution of resources and building state capacity to alleviate local tensions.

Denmark’s programme for the fragile border areas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger combines climate adaptation with facilitating community dialogue and mediation over resource access. In a 2018 report, the GEF’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) urged the GEF to take opportunities ‘to contribute actively to conflict prevention, not only by mitigating the vulnerabilities affecting particular stakeholder groups but also by strengthening institutions of environmental cooperation and equitable resource governance’.

However, it is unclear whether this advice has been followed. Otherwise, there was little sign of peace-positive activities on the part of any of the five donors. Similarly, there were no examples of climate adaptation projects having specific indicators for impacts on peace.

It is important to acknowledge that peace-positive efforts may exceed the mandates and capacities of many climate adaptation actors.

Collaboration and coordination with other actors

The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit underlined the fact that collaboration and coordination between humanitarian, development and peacebuilding (HDP) actors is necessary to better address issues linked to climate change and conflict, such as population displacement.

For example, climate adaptation actors new to an area can benefit from the knowledge, experience and local connections of humanitarian and peacebuilding actors already operating there.

Calls for such cooperation and collaboration have become commonplace among international actors in the HDP fields. Yet it is rarely seen in practice: HDP and climate adaptation projects still occur in isolation. Challenges to collaboration and cooperation include the varying engagement timelines and methodologies of different actors.

There are positive signs, however. For example, the African Development Bank’s Strategy for Addressing Fragility and Building Resilience in Africa (2022–2026) emphasizes the value of collaboration ‘across many actors’, playing to each one’s comparative advantages in the ‘multidimensional challenge’ of tackling fragility.

Some of the AfDB’s recent country strategies indicate that it has taken steps to map the other development partners operating in the country, suggesting a will to put this principle into practice.

Participatory and inclusive approaches

Another widely accepted principle is that projects are more likely to succeed with the participation of key stakeholders and the inclusion of different groups affected by the project—because, among other things, this makes the project more likely to respond to local needs and realities, which in turn builds a stronger sense of local ownership.

In FCS, it is even more important to understand how different groups may benefit or lose out from a project and how interventions may create or deepen local tensions. Inclusive, participatory approaches are therefore essential to ensure conflict sensitivity and peace-positive outcomes.

The Netherlands’ Global Climate Strategy advocates for a people-centred approach, setting equity and inclusion as guiding principles. ‘Locally led adaption’ and ‘meaningful participation’ are prioritized in order to better understand local needs and benefit from the knowledge and experiences of local people, especially vulnerable groups.

Similarly, the AfDB’s policies promote intensified engagement with civil society. An example of this in practice is seen in a project on sustainable water management in the Eastern Nile region, which integrated community-based feedback and validation processes that provided insight into local perceptions of the project.

Flexibility and adaptability

Various past climate adaptation projects have had to be abandoned or relocated when conflict has broken out. This has been blamed in part on inflexibility in the projects’ designs: being only suitable for a fixed set of pre-conflict circumstances.

As volatility is a characteristic of FCS, flexible approaches that allow timelines, budgets and activities to be adapted in response to changing contexts allow projects to be more effective and to stay relevant.

The Netherlands mentions ‘modular’ programme design as one of the ‘special methods’ it uses for development cooperation in fragile areas. This allows different parts of a programme to be modified in response to changes in the situation on the ground without jeopardizing the entire programme.

The World Bank reports that while its current guidance offers a ‘range of operational flexibilities’, project teams have not always used them. It acknowledges that ‘efforts are needed to ensure that teams are aware and feel empowered to draw on flexibilities as needed so that practice aligns with policy’.

Looking ahead

Major donors appear to be aware of key ways to facilitate effective, peace-positive climate adaptation in FCS, based on their policies and strategies. This is promising, but there is limited evidence of how, or whether, this awareness is being translated into practice. There is an urgent need to share insights and experiences on how this can be done effectively.

The findings build on a document analysis conducted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) for the Global Center on Adaptation’s Water and Urban programme.

Ann-Sophie Böhle is a Research Assistant in the SIPRI Climate Change and Risk Programme.

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 29 2024 – The Communist Manifesto of a bygone era, authored by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, begins with an implicit warning: “A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism.”

And today another specter is haunting– this time at the United Nations — the specter of a second Trump presidency.

When Trump first took office back in January 2017, he either de-funded, withdrew from, or denigrated several UN agencies and affiliated institutions, including the World Health Organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN Human Rights Council, among others.

In the unlikely event of a second Trump presidency, should the UN be preparing for another political nightmare?

According to a report on Cable News Network (CNN) last October, Trump was quoted as saying that if elected again to the White House, he would reinstate and expand a travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries, suspend refugee resettlements and aggressively deport those whom he characterized as having “jihadist sympathies.”

He cited the Hamas attacks on Israel as the reason for his hard-line immigration policies. Trump also said he would ban travel from Gaza, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya “or anywhere else that threatens our security.”

When Trump first walked onto the podium at the General Assembly hall, he looked at the hundreds of foreign delegates from 192 countries, and reportedly asked: “How the hell did you guys get into this country?”, according to a joke in circulation in the UN’s watering hole, the delegate’s lounge.

There was also a widespread rumor of a new slogan promoting tourism during Trump’s presidency: “Visit us on a one-way ticket – and we will deport you free”.

Meanwhile, at a 2017 White House meeting, Trump apparently said all Haitians “have AIDS’; that Nigerians should “go back to their huts in Africa’; and questioned why US should welcome people from “shithole countries” in Africa, according a report in the New York Times.

And he also displayed his ignorance by asking whether UK was a nuclear power – and whether Nepal (which he pronounced as Nipple) and Bhutan (pronounced Button) were part of India?

Asked about a possible second Trump presidency, Kul Gautam, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF told IPS: “Yes, there will be considerable potential danger and a great deal of unpredictability to the UN system in the unlikely event of a 2nd Trump Presidency”.

However, he pointed out, the extent of the danger will depend on what happens in the US Congress. If Trump wins and the US House of Representatives and the Senate are also captured by the Republicans, the UN could face a mortal risk.

And also, recall that earlier this year the House Republicans zeroed out funding for the UN regular budget and more than a dozen UN entities, including UNICEF and WHO.

So, the worst-case scenario for the UN would be Trump in the White House and Republican majority in both chambers of the US Congress.

But if one or both Houses of Congress are held by the Democratic Party, Trump alone cannot cause irreparable harm to the UN. Still, US defunding of certain UN agencies will cause great harm to those UN entities and the important services they provide, said Gautam, author of “My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations”. (www.kulgautam.org).

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and Director of International Studies at the University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the United Nations, told IPS: “Yes, this would indeed be disastrous and UN funding for these agencies and affiliated institutions would indeed be cut”.

It should be noted, however, that Biden has already eliminated U.S. funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and has threatened to eliminate funding to any organization that has Palestine as a full member. Though Harris has generally been less hostile to international legal norms than Biden, I have seen no indication that Harris would reverse these policies, said Zunes.

“Given Trump’s disrespect for domestic laws and institutions, it’s not surprising he would have a similar contempt for international laws and institutions,” he declared.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and head of the former Department of Public Information (DPI), told IPS besides welcoming senior UN officials at Trump Tower, across from U.N. Headquarters, the former US President also enjoyed being seated at the main table at the luncheon for heads of state at the opening of the General assembly session.

Under a Trump presidency, he said, there is however a serious risk of blocking payments for certain U.N. Agencies and Funds, particularly UNRWA, which offers assistance to Palestinian refugees and advocates their right of return. Also, WHO and possibly UNICEF would face cuts particularly for their assistance in Gaza.

“And I read somewhere that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would prefer to clear Gaza from its two million human beings in order to turn it into a tourist resort,” said Sanbar.

Commenting on the on-again, off-again US threat to cut funds to the UN, Gautam said a blessing in disguise of drastic US defunding of the UN would be for the organization to seriously explore a more robust alternative long-term funding mechanism of the UN and reduce its heavy dependence on US funding.

To avoid the perpetual threat and blackmail of the US and occasionally some other member states defunding the UN, “I am all for resurrecting, reconsidering and reformulating a very creative proposal presented by former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme way back in 1985.

Palme proposed that no country should be asked or allowed to contribute more than 10 percent to the UN’s budget.”

That would have meant a significant reduction in the US share of the UN budget from 25 % to 10 %; and a modest increase in contribution by most other countries.

“I am FOR the Palme proposal to reduce the UN’s over-dependence on a handful of large donors, and correspondingly decrease the undue influence of those countries in the appointment of high-level UN jobs, and other decision-making processes”.

“Today, many UN activities benefit from voluntary contribution of governments, as well as the private sector, and philanthropic foundations. I believe we must seriously explore more such innovative possibilities, including income from the Global Commons and the Tobin Tax, to liberate the UN from the perpetual threats of arbitrary cuts and defunding by major donors.”

And it is worth recalling that in the larger scheme of international finance, in a world economy of $103 trillion and global military budgets of $2.4 trillion per year, the UN’s regular annual budget is less than $4 billion, and the totality of the UN system’s budget for humanitarian assistance, development cooperation, peace-keeping operations, technical assistance and other essential normative functions, amounts to less than $50 billion per year.

“This is a modest amount to respond to the huge challenges that the UN is asked and expected to help tackle. To put it in perspective, the total UN system-wide spending annually is far less than one month’s US spending on defense, and less than the US military aid to Israel or Ukraine alone.”

With similar investment, bilateral aid and national budgets of much bigger proportions could hardly achieve results comparable to what the UN and international financial institutions achieve, declared Gautam.

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By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Aug 29 2024 – Danilo Barbosa had never taken part in political processes until his name was drawn in a lottery to join the climate assembly of the municipality of Bujaru, in the Amazon region of Brazil.

“It was a good experience, a very important channel. People participated, they wanted to talk about the important issues and to have visibility about their concerns. Since people make a living from agriculture, that’s why I wanted to address this issue,” Barbosa told IPS from the municipality of Blumenau, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, where he lives temporarily.

Barbosa, 29, was part of a group of 50 people, chosen at random, to take part in the Bujaru climate assembly and discuss the opportunities and challenges of the climate crisis in the area and how to influence the process of designing and implementing related public policies.

The cultivation of rice, beans, maize and cassava, as well as livestock farming in deforested areas, are the main economic activities in the area, in the northern state of Pará.“There is talk in these times of political disaffection, in a hyper-individualised world, but when you open the doors so that people can participate, give ideas, there is a great desire to be present. We will see the results later”: Ignacio Gertie.

For this reason, “we want agriculture that does not affect the environment and looks after the jungle. We need to protect biodiversity. That’s why it’s important that they consider our vision for the municipality, we want to help it grow,” said Barbosa, an administrative and accounting assistant in the real estate sector.

The climate assembly, under the subject Sustainable Bioeconomy: Paths and Options to Generate Jobs, Income and Quality of Life in Bujaru, resulted from a process between August and October 2023 that invited Amazonian cities to participate. Sixteen municipalities from six of the nine Brazilian Amazonian states responded.

During five sessions between April and May this year, the assembly deliberated on how to strategically position themselves and access opportunities in favour of sustainable performance and the bioeconomy, on issues such as forest management, monocultures, deforestation and synergy between technological innovation and ancestral knowledge.

By the end of August, the group will submit to the municipality, of 24,300 inhabitants, their recommendations, which include the design of a municipal agricultural plan with goals and indicators, the promotion of cooperatives, ecotourism and rural tourism.

Climate assemblies are mechanisms of deliberative democracy, discussion and reflection, promoted so that the citizens of a locality assume a central role in decision-making on the impacts of climate change and specific measures to address them.

A climate assembly starts with the random election of its members from the people attending its meetings. The group discusses an agenda of local climate issues and drafts recommendations for municipal and regional authorities. Infographic: Ecovidrio

By promoting local action, they address community-specific issues, because they know the local problems well, and they urge governments to include their concerns.

As such, these meetings sprouted from 2019 in Great Britain, France and Spain, spreading throughout Europe with varied results.

In Latin America they are still new, although the region has a participatory tradition, such as community boards with different names, which decide on local issues, and neighbourhood meetings to design participatory budgets.

Bolivia and Honduras have legal frameworks for public participation, while Bolivia and Colombia have institutional channels for popular participatory involvement, according to data from the non-governmental International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), which promotes citizen participation initiatives.

In 2016, Uruguay was a pioneer with the Decí Agua initiative on citizen deliberation to provide input to draft the National Water Plan, instituted two years later.

In Chile, the Citizens’ Climate Assembly in the southern region of Los Lagos met between May and August 2023 to make recommendations to the regional government on environmental education, energy efficiency and water management, which were delivered the following November.

Similar processes in Brazil and Colombia have shown the importance of citizen participation in the political debate, but had no direct impact on the design of public policies to address the climate crisis.

The Citizens’ Climate Assembly in the Los Lagos region of southern Chile met in 2023 to present advice to the regional government on environmental education, energy efficiency and water management. Credit: Los Lagos Regional Government

Experiments

In addition to Bujaru, other Latin American cities are organising their own procedures with the same objective, part of a regional project that the international network of (Re)emergent assemblies is promoting in four Latin American cities.

In the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León, a Climate Assembly was elected on Thursday 22nd to deliberate and issue recommendations in four meetings, with the aim of improving the territory’s environmental policies and prioritising actions to adapt to the climate crisis in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, the capital.

Bosque Iglesias, a climate advocacy consultant with the non-governmental Instituto del Sur, told IPS that a group of people were invited and an open application form was set up.

“We wanted people to feel called to participate. We prioritised areas in five polygons with heat islands, where there are voices that suffer most from the crisis and tend to be relegated in the public debate. The call has been challenging, because in the first week they came little by little,” he said from Monterrey.

In the draw on Thursday 22, the 50 people in the assembly were chosen from 542 candidates from 11 municipalities in the metropolitan area. Starting in September 7 they will tackle 11 of the 140 lines of action of the state’s climate change programme, supported by the Ministry of the Environment of Nuevo León.

The agenda includes water treatment, monitoring of urban green spaces, mobility and construction of green infrastructure.

In the Argentinian city of Mar del Plata, “it was decided to focus on the climate issue… We have to think of multidimensional, multidisciplinary and participatory solutions, with the challenges that our governments have. Unlike Europe, we have less budget and other more urgent priorities”: Ignacio Gertie.

In 2022, Nuevo León, especially Monterrey – which had 1.14 million people, or more than five million with the suburban area – faced a severe water crisis. The municipal administration declared a climate emergency in 2021, being the first Mexican city to do so. In 2024, heat waves hit the metropolis.

From 13 to 22 August, a climate assembly in the city of Mar del Plata, in Argentina’s southeast Atlantic, discussed recommendations for a new climate action plan for the district of General Pueyrredón, of which it is the capital.

The group addressed training, awareness-raising and community-driven policy-making, solid and liquid waste management, reuse of materials and recycling, as well as disaster prevention and preparedness.

Ignacio Gertie, project leader at the non-governmental Democracia en Red, told IPS that there is a growing demand and need for institutional openness to citizen participation, which is reflected in experiences like the one in the Argentine tourist city.

“It was decided to focus on the climate issue… so we have to think about multidimensional, multidisciplinary and participatory solutions, with the challenges that our governments face. Unlike Europe, we are less resilient, with smaller budgets and other more urgent priorities,” he said from Mar del Plata.

The city, which in 2022 had over 682,000 people and belongs to the Argentine Network of Municipalities facing Climate Change, is drawing up its local action plan to face challenges such as the water situation and heat waves.

Another regional experience is the climate assembly of the Colombian city of Buenaventura, in the southwestern department of Valle del Cauca, with growing climate challenges. It started meeting to deliberate and issue suggestions on the collection and transformation of solid waste in the area.

Its port on the Pacific Ocean, the largest in Colombia and one of the top 10 in Latin America, faces water risks, loss of biodiversity, temperature increase and ocean acidification, as well as coastal erosion, for which the city has had a Territorial Climate Change Management Plan since 2016, currently in the process of being updated.

Monterrey, in Mexico, suffers from water problems, air pollution and high temperatures. Half a hundred people, selected at random on 23 August, will deliberate on measures to tackle the effects of the climate crisis in the city and its surroundings. Credit: Autonomous University of Nuevo León

Pioneers

The first wave of European climate assemblies provides evidence that citizens are willing and able to arrive at climate recommendations that are decisive for the population.

In France, authorities have implemented approximately 50 % of the recommendations or an alternative measure that partially implements the proposal, according to the study ‘Deliberative Democracy and Climate Change’, which Idea-International and the governmental French Development Agency released in June.

In Bujaru, Barbosa, who will return to his municipality in September, is ready to monitor the implementation.

“We will verify if they take into account the recommendations in the plans. It won’t be immediate. We talked about the importance of implementing measures in the area” for the benefit of the population, he said.

Mexico’s Iglesias and Argentina’s Gertie are confident that the citizens’ process will continue to contribute to climate action.

“The challenge is institutional follow-up. It is a major task of the assembly to stay coordinated in order to demand it. Having a group of actors to follow up is key. We hope to weave a joint advocacy agenda and become strong in the collective, and be a relevant subject in the face of the crisis,” Iglesias predicted.

For Gertie, the road ahead is to organise more processes. “There is talk in these times of political disaffection, in a hyper-individualised world, but when you open the doors so that people can participate, give ideas, there is a great desire to be present. We will see the results later,” he stressed.