India has urged for adopting a cautionary approach on linking climate change to security and giving the United States Security Council the right to take action to address it.
The Asian country said overly militarised solutions to problems which require non-military responses bring the wrong actors to the table. India's Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin told the Security Council on Friday: "A mere decision of the Council to takeover enforcement of climate change action would disrupt the 2105 Paris Agreement and multilateral efforts to find solutions."
He said this while speaking at the UN Security Council's open debate on 'Addressing the impacts of climate-related disasters on international peace and security' "Climate Change is an unprecedented challenge to global civilisation," he said and added that India believed that climate action should be a priority area for international cooperation. "Global institutions should be responsive to felt human needs, including disaster preparedness, as well as resilience and response in the face of disasters. Such phenomena tend to threaten human well-being. Also, in some cases, such as rising sea levels, the integrity of States is at stake, even in the absence of violence and conflict," he stated.
He said this while speaking at the UN Security Council's open debate on 'Addressing the impacts of climate-related disasters on international peace and security' "Climate Change is an unprecedented challenge to global civilisation," he said and added that India believed that climate action should be a priority area for international cooperation. "Global institutions should be responsive to felt human needs, including disaster preparedness, as well as resilience and response in the face of disasters. Such phenomena tend to threaten human well-being. Also, in some cases, such as rising sea levels, the integrity of States is at stake, even in the absence of violence and conflict," he stated.
He added that while climate risks are evident in some specific cases, research findings on generalized linkages between climate disasters and security remain ambiguous. "The nexus between climate change and security is complex, contingent, and still contested. Hence, we as practitioners wanting to address such matters through international cooperation, face dilemmas," he stated.
