Climate change and environmental degradation pose devastating security threats to humanity. Major and urgent political efforts to mitigate climate change are crucial to avert the most devastating consequences of the crisis for humans and the environment and to stop climate-related violent conflicts now and in the future.
TraCe members Prof. Dr Markus Lederer and Verena Lasso Mena from the Technical University of Darmstadt, participated in the first week of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Egypt and got an on-site impression of this year's negotiations, policy approaches and happenings at the World Climate Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh.
This year's event focuses on key issues of climate adaptation, loss and damage, and climate finance, highlighting once again the high complexity of the challenges of cooperative security and development policy in a global context. Especially from wealthy emission-intensive industrialized countries, increasing engagement and a comprehensive financial mechanism towards vulnerable states with low climate-damaging emissions at high climate burdens are demanded at COP27 under the keyword "loss and damage". However, expectations for the final declaration of Sharm El-Sheikh seem to be subdued so far. It remains to be seen how capable the international climate diplomacy within the UN structure will be this year in shaping urgently needed processes and continuous progress. Also in view of climate change in its capacity as a multiplier of political violence, there are significant preventive approaches to curb new forms and dimensions of violence.