Wrong forum: On climate change and the UNSC

News: India, voted against the draft resolution that linked climate change with global security challenges in the UN Security Council (UNSC).

What is the resolution all about?

What are the arguments related to the resolution?

Favour: Climate is creating security risks in the world, which will exacerbate in the future with water shortage, migration and destruction of livelihoods. With the support of the present US administration, the developed world is pushing to include “climate security” in the agenda of the UNSC.

Against: UNSC’s primary responsibility is “maintenance of international peace and security” and climate change-related issues are outside its ambit. Bringing the issue under the UNSC will also give more powers to the world’s industrialized countries, which hold veto power, to decide on future action on climate-related security issues. So, it was an attempt to shift climate talks from the UNFCCC to the UNSC.

What is India’s stand on it?

It is true that the pace of Climate talks is slow in UNFCC but outsourcing to UNSC is not the solution. It is wrong to look at climate change through the prism of security. Each nation faces different challenges in transitioning into a greener economy.

India pointed out that developed countries still do not reach the promises they made with regard to climate action. Also, the least developed and developing countries should be encouraged to keep the promises they made with financial assistance. It should be a collective task, where decisions should be made by consensus.

Instead of outsourcing it to UNSC, UNFCC should expand the scope of discussions to include climate-related security issues.

Source: This post is based on the article “Wrong forum: On climate change and the UNSC” published in The Hindu on 17th December 2021.