E3G

Beckett speech: The Case for Climate Security

By Chris Littlecott

A job application?

Beckett then moved on to tackle her critics:

I know full well that there are some who suggest that I would be better off concentrating instead on the ‘real’ security problems in the world.

They could not be more wrong.

I am as focused on and as determined to address the so-called ‘hard’ security agenda as any Foreign Secretary. It takes up a large part of each and every working day. What has changed is not my priorities – they are resolutely foreign policy priorities not purely environmental ones – but the way in which I believe those priorities can be best pursued.

I simply do not believe that we will solve the security issues of the day unless we address the global insecurities that underlie and exacerbate them. And I do not think that I would be doing my job properly if I considered it enough simply to respond to each crisis as it occurs: the foreign policy that I will pursue (yes, I am using the future tense) is one that looks down the line at how we can prevent such crises from happening at all.

In other words, I attach no less importance to the hard security agenda but I am looking for the broadest and deepest possible understanding of what drives that agenda and what tools we can employ – going way beyond the purely military – to get the results that we want.”

The striking part of that last quote was Beckett’s inclusion of “the foreign policy that I will pursue (yes, I am using the future tense)” - clearly setting out her desire to continue driving forward this agenda beyond the expected cabinet reshuffle following the forthcoming change in UK Prime Minister. This same point was reported in sceptical terms by right of centre blogger Iain Dale.