The Planetary Security Initiative (PSI) is pleased to invite you to our public event on the climate-related security risks and opportunities for environmental peacebuilding on June 17th. As a knowledge hub, PSI links climate change and security, aiming to catalyse action in affected contexts. The event will feature both local solutions, such as PSI’s Basra Forum on Climate, Environment and Security in Iraq, and the role of international partners, particularly the Netherlands, in reducing climate-related risks.

Climate change has implications for security. Droughts, increasing temperatures, rising sea levels and extreme weather events threaten the livelihoods of millions around the globe. Iraq, the Horn of Africa and India are among the most affected areas. In Iraq, a combination of water shortages, heat waves, and dust storms is directly threatening people’s lives and livelihoods and has helped to spur instability, notably in Basra in 2018. The Horn of Africa is facing the severest drought since 1981, accelerating food shortages along with the fallout of wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine. India is struggling with stronger and more frequent cyclones, rising sea levels and temperatures, with heatwaves threatening wheat harvests.

Programme

15:00: Welcome by Dr. Louise van Schaik, Head of Unit EU & Global Affairs
15:05: Input by Dr. Danashree Jayaram (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation)
                  Discussant: H.E. Marten van den Berg, Netherlands Ambassador to India
15:15: Input by Salman Khirallah (Humat Dijlah)
                  Discussant: H.E. Michel Rentenaar, Netherlands Ambassador to Iraq
15:25: Input by Arrliya Sugal (Berghof Foundation)
                  Discussant: H.E. Maarten Brouwer, Netherlands Ambassador to Kenya, Somalia and Eritrea
15:35: Q&A and discussion
15:55: Concluding remarks by Dr. Louise van Schaik

About the Planetary Security Initiative

The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched the PSI in 2015, operated by a consortium of leading think tanks. With the focus on four major planetary security conferences, the initiative now redirected its focus from awareness creation to applicable action after successfully supporting the efforts to place climate-related security risk at the centre of the global foreign policy and defence stage. PSI will therefore continue to act as a global knowledge hub. Its activities on the ground will be shifting more towards the regions (a.o. Middle-East & Levant) where this agenda is most pressing. In these regions, PSI will work with local partners. PSI will work with journalists from countries highly affected by the climate-security nexus to increase the public's awareness and spark international debate. 

The Planetary Security Initiative is implemented by Clingendael Institute. 

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