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United Nations

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 June 2021

Thursday, 24 June 2021

Questions (109)

Alan Farrell

Question:

109. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the efforts being made by Ireland to raise climate change as an issue of national security on the United Nations Security Council; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33245/21]

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Written answers

The UN Security Council is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security and it is in this context that it addresses climate change.

I am deeply concerned about the security impacts of climate change. It is no coincidence that of the 15 countries most susceptible to climate risks, 8 host a UN peacekeeping operation or a special political mission.

As a result, we have prioritised the issue of climate change through our membership of the UN Security Council. We are doing this in a number of ways.

First, we have taken up the role of co-chair of the Informal Expert Group on Climate and Security along with Niger. As co-chair we are working to ensure that members of the Council have access to the latest analysis and research on climate related security risks. This is important to build our collective understanding of how climate change contributes to insecurity but also how climate action can help build peace. The strengthening of knowledge in this way is part of our efforts to build consensus across Security Council members on the importance of the Council robustly tackling this issue as part of its mandate.

Secondly and relatedly, we are working to advance the inclusion of climate in UN Security Council mandates and resolutions where it makes sense to do so. This includes, for example, the provision for comprehensive risk assessments and risk management strategies in peacekeeping mandate renewals where relevant. We are also keen to ensure that missions at country-level have the operational capacity and expertise to deliver on these climate-related mandates and we are currently looking at how we can better support this.

Finally, we are supporting international efforts to develop and pilot integrated climate and security risk and foresight assessments through the Weathering Risk initiative.

We will continue to prioritise this issue across our engagement at the Security Council.

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