Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk
Publisher: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Author(s): José Francisco Alvarado Cóbar, Kyungmee Kim, Geoffrey Dabelko, Anniek Barnhoorn, Florian Krampe, Evelyn Salas Alfaro, Noah Bell, Claire McAllister, Emilie Broek, David Michel, Karolina Eklöw, Elise Remling, Jakob Faller, Elizabeth Smith, Andrea Gadnert, D
Date: 2022
Topics: Basic Services, Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Cooperation, Disasters, Extractive Resources, Gender, Governance, Renewable Resources
Countries: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kiribati, Libya, Mali, Mexico, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Palestine, Russian Federation, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Yemen
Behind the headlines of war in Europe and the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic, our world is being drawn into a black hole of deepening twin crises in security and the environment. Indicators of insecurity are rising, while indicators of environmental integrity are sinking. The mix is toxic, profound and damaging; and institutions with the power to find solutions, including governments, are waking up far too slowly.
As we show in this report, there are real examples of hope to draw on. In the UN system, at regional level and within countries,
the links between environmental degradation and insecurity are in places being taken more seriously. Most governments are open to cooperation on these issues, and in some cases they are pursuing it. Non-governmental organizations are actively building peace through environmental enhancement. These examples are models that can be upscaled, provided the vision and will are there.
We conclude by presenting a series of six recommendations for action, and a set of five principles to guide it. The principles include cooperation and adaptability, which, in the face of an unpredictably changing risk landscape, are just common sense. So is inclusion, because solutions in which all parties have a say are more likely to succeed. Solutions will have to take account of the fact that the problem is both pressing and deep-rooted, meaning that action has to begin immediately yet be guided by far-sighted vision.