In recent years, the ‘climate security’ narrative has increasingly been taken up by the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) space. For the third consecutive year in 2024, this topic has been discussed at the climate conference COP – although not part of the formal negotiations.
The increasing recognition of climate in the field of security raises awareness of the critical challenges of the climate crisis – such as exacerbating inequalities and underlying conflict drivers like competition over natural resources, lack of livelihoods, and increasing food insecurity. However, this ‘threat multiplier’ framing prioritizes the security concerns of the most powerful states in the so-called Global North while overlooking the solutions needed for the most marginalized communities.
The COP29 climate summit, which took place on 11-24 November 2024, was announced by the Presidency Azerbaijan as the first so-called ‘COP of Peace’. The aim was to drive forward the conversations around the ‘climate-security nexus’ building on the COP28 Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery and Peace as well as the COP27 Climate Responses for Sustaining Peace initiative (CRSP). However, the ‘COP of Peace’ approach was widely criticised beforehand as a ‘peacewashing’ exercise – particularly in light of the ongoing human rights violations within Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
‘COP of Peace’ rhetorical commitments fail to translate into tangible action
On November 15 – the Energy, Peace, Relief and Recovery Day, the COP Presidency launched the Baku Call on Climate Action for Peace, Relief, and Recovery at a high-level panel titled “Climate and Peace: Enabling Joint Action to Leave No One Behind”. Developed in partnership with Egypt, Italy, Germany, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom, the initiative aims to address “the urgent nexus of climate change, conflict, and humanitarian needs and brings into partnership an unprecedented set of Global North and South countries”. With this call, the Baku Climate and Peace Action Hub was established as a platform for further coordination, with the COP29 Presidency serving as the Secretariat. While coordination efforts and “results-oriented synergy” among parties are important, there are no feasible steps nor concrete accountability mechanisms to implement these rhetorical commitments into tangible action.
Although the Baku Call as well as the Action Hub seek to promote “peace-sensitive climate action” with a focus on addressing water scarcity, food insecurity, and land degradation, they neglect to consider increasing militarism as one of the root causes for climate insecurity. This topic remains unaddressed despite the surge to a record high of $2.44 trillion in military expenditures in 2023 which correlates with 5.5% of global military greenhouse gas emissions.
The Baku Call further fails to recognise that a key solution to prevent climate-driven insecurity remains an equitable fossil fuel phase out, which includes the transparency and reduction of military greenhouse gas emissions as well as clear pathways for a conflict-sensitive and just transition. This is, unfortunately, not surprising for a COP host aiming to expand its oil and gas production. A reference to the topic of military spending came from Enrique Ochoa, Mexico’s Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs, who reiterated Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum’s G20 call to allocate 1% of military spending to reforest 15 million hectares and capture millions of tons of CO₂.
As part of their ‘COP of Peace’ approach, Azerbaijan further announced a so-called ‘COP Truce’ inspired by the Olympic Truce with the aim to halt all military operations during the month of the conference. While the COP29 Presidency announced that a total of 131 countries joined the COP Truce Appeal, there were no concrete efforts for ceasefires to be implemented in the more than 50 armed conflicts and wars at the time such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and more – leaving particularly those affected by the devastating violence to question the effectiveness of such a truce.
Insufficient climate finance undermines inclusive peace efforts
Besides the ‘COP of Peace’, COP29 was also a ‘Finance COP’ as the new climate finance goal was negotiated. The lack of ambition within the outcomes of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), which set a target of at least $300 billion annually by 2035 and a nebulous “Baku to Belém roadmap to mobilise 1.3 trillion”, has left Global South countries deeply disappointed. This is not only because the timeline disregards the urgency of the crisis but also fails to consider inflation, which indicates that the net value of $300 billion in 2035 would equate to approximately $175 billion in today’s terms (2024 USD). This inadequacy of finance is particularly damaging for fragile and conflict-affected states, where climate adaptation financing remains alarmingly low. In 2021, the ten most fragile states received just $223 million – less than 1% of total climate finance flows.
Ahead of COP29, a global community of experts, practitioners, civil society and policy-makers developed the Common Principles for Effective Climate Finance and Action for Relief, Recovery and Peace. These principles emphasize the need for conflict-sensitive climate finance, including gender-sensitive analysis, local ownership and leadership by affected groups. However, in addition to the insufficient quantitative outcome, the NCQG failed to incorporate critical qualitative elements in its final text – such as ‘gender-responsiveness’ and the explicit ‘protection of human rights’.
Principle 3 of the Common Principles highlights the importance of accessibility of climate finance for marginalized communities – especially crucial for the conflict-affected ones who live beyond the government’s control over financial resources. However, in the final NCQG outcome, this aspect of enhanced direct access remained unaddressed for impacted communities, i. e. Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women in all their diversity, people with disabilities, migrants, refugees, workers, youth, and children. The exclusion of affected communities from meaningful decision-making in climate finance along with the absence of locally led approaches – to distribute funds to those who need it the most – undermine both effective climate action and inclusive peacebuilding efforts.
Additionally, the failure to include loss and damage as a subgoal – and with voluntary pledges for the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage rising to only $745.03 million USD – significantly limits the ability of the 17 simultaneously conflict-affected and climate-vulnerable countries to address the ongoing losses and damages. This is compounded by the already mentioned insufficient level of adaptation finance resulting in overall weaker resilience.
What needs to happen next?
As ‘climate security’ appears to be an integral part of the COP processes by now, the extent to which it will feature at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, remains to be seen. Nonetheless, a focus on human security – a concept that goes beyond the traditional understanding of state security by putting people at the heart of efforts for sustainable peace – will remain essential for the continued conversation on climate, peace, and security. This entails consulting Most Affected People and Areas (MAPA) which bear the brunt of the climate crisis and following the leadership of local and Indigenous efforts for conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and climate resilience. It further includes the urgency of protecting environmental defenders – an estimated 196 of whom were killed in 2023, with Brazil recording the second-highest number of such killings worldwide.
Focusing on human security will also shift the emphasis of ‘climate security’ away from expanding militarized responses to the perceived ‘threats’ of climate change, which is currently evident in the securitization of borders to deter climate migrants. Instead, it will emphasize to address the root causes, advance environmental peacebuilding initiatives, and to centre an intersectional approach to safety and solutions for true climate justice. At the COP29 side event “What Really Makes Us Safe? Peace, Climate Finance and Climate Action in an Existential Time”, Shirine Jurdi from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Lebanon shared her perspective on what safety means to her: “True safety comes from ending war, halting the production of weapons and committing to a permanent ceasefire. Without peace, there can be no climate justice.”
With attempts to roll back on human rights and an increasing anti-gender movement evident at COP29, it will be essential to strive for gender-transformative action. Women, girls and gender-diverse people are not only disproportionately impacted by climate risks but are also indispensable leaders in natural resource management and conflict resolution. At COP29, the United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund reaffirmed its commitment to invest in women’s and girls’ active participation and leadership in peace-oriented climate action, aiming at $25 million USD to support these efforts. Similar financial commitments should be replicated, as women and gender-diverse people receive the least funding for climate action in fragile and conflict-affected countries.
In the run up to COP30, a push for human rights-based, gender-transformative, conflict-sensitive climate action will remain vital. Mobilising climate finance that addresses the intersections of gender, climate, peace, and security will be a crucial step to achieve climate justice and sustainable peace for all – as will be listening to and amplifying the perspectives of those most impacted by the climate crisis.
