E3G

Climate Security: Asia in the spotlight while opinions differ in Canada

By Chris Littlecott

Following hot on the heels of the first ever climate change debate at the UN Security Council, this week saw the continued rise of climate security as an issue of real concern to the international community.

On Tuesday, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies hosted the latest event in its Climate Security series. This time the event focused on the particular role of Asia, concentrating on 4 core themes:

The security implications of climate change in Asia

International interpretations of Asian climate security

UK climate security policy and engagement in Asia

Options for mitigation: cooperation and multilateral engagement

E3G Founding Director John Ashton contributed to the debate in his role as Special Representative for Climate Change of the UK Foreign Office, and his comments were widely quoted in the international print media over the following days.

The Reuters report led the way in this, providing extensive coverage of John Ashton’s remarks. These underlined that our global interdependence allows no escape from the impacts of an unstable climate:

This is an issue of collective security … There are no nations or regions that will be winners if the world fails to face up to the challenge of climate change.”

“This is not a conventional security issue. No amount of investment in guns and missiles will help deal with climate change,” he added. “But everyone must recognise that there is a security dimension to climate change.”

The article also reports John Ashton’s defence of Britain’s initiation of the UN Security Council Debate last week after some countries had accused Britain of ‘scare-mongering’:

Ashton noted drought-related conflicts in Kenya and Sudan, and pointed out that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had called climate change an “act of aggression” by rich nations against poor ones.

Ashton said world wheat prices were already 40 percent up on two years ago because of a major drought in Australia which he said was directly attributable to global warming.

We have to do far more than we have done so far to help those most impacted by climate change,” Ashton told the meeting.

The Reuters story was replicated around the world including in The Australian, and was also picked up by blogs including desmogblog.com.