United Nations Climate Change High-Level Champions’ Special Advisor, Africa Director, Bogolo Kenewendo says there is lack of interest on the part of national-security policymakers in assisting developing countries with their difficult transition to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions.
She said the Munich Security Conference (MSC) held over a month ago largely disregarded the systemic risks presented by climate change, much like the 2019 conference ignored the risk of a pandemic. “The lack of interest in climate adaptation and mitigation among national-security policymakers reflects a profound misunderstanding of the risks that climate change poses to global stability,” she says, adding that “to avert catastrophe, the international community must help the world’s most vulnerable countries strengthen their resilience.”
Every year, world leaders, military commanders, diplomats, and spies assemble in Munich for the conference that frequently features eminent speakers.
While attempting not to minimise traditional security threats and current global challenges such as the war in Ukraine, Kenewendo suggested that issues such as climate change adaptation and green finance should also be treated as significant threats. She claimed that the MSC squandered a golden opportunity to devise solutions to global warming by completely ignoring the systemic risks presented by climate change, such as economic regression, food insecurity, and forced displacement.
“Given that the MSC’s organisers defined the transformation of relations between the Global North and South as one of this year’s themes, the lack of interest in mitigating the worst effects of global warming represents a missed opportunity. More importantly, it reflects a profound misunderstanding of the biggest threat facing our planet today,” she says.
She stated that the effects of climate change are already being felt around the world. To illustrate her point, she cited Pakistan, where rice output is expected to fall by 7% this year as a result of last year’s devastating floods. “This will exacerbate food insecurity and fuel political instability in countries that depend on Pakistan for rice imports, such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Kenya,” she said, adding that “forty percent of S&P 500 companies experienced supply-chain disruptions in 2021”.
According to the Botswana Climate Policy, there is evidence “that indeed Botswana is highly vulnerable to climate change, and that the vulnerability of … economic drivers will continue to increase if effective adaptation and mitigation actions are not implemented”.
Kenewendo mentions that there is need to speed up significant expenditures in mitigation and adaptation. “Developed countries must also step up and ensure that lower-income countries on the frontlines of climate change can strengthen their resilience. By funding initiatives like the African Development Bank’s Adaptation Fund and the Africa Climate Risk Facility, the international community could provide much-needed protection for the world’s most vulnerable populations,” she said.
In addition, Kenewendo noted that “to bolster global security and resilience, we must acknowledge that adaptation finance is “an unavoidable necessity””.
The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in their assessment highlight that weather related disasters in Botswana between 1980–2020 cost the country almost P2 billion. They also note that without adaptation financing, the costs of these adaptation measures will keep rising. Adaptation measures include resilient water sources; early warning systems; dryland farming which encompass specific agricultural techniques for the non-irrigated cultivation of crops; and climate-resilient infrastructure which are smart practices and technologies for climate resilient agriculture such as fodder cultivars to tackle fodder scarcity, integrated farming system modules, recharge of wells to improve shallow aquifers.
