Ahmed Abdel-Latif, director-general of the Cairo International Centre for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Peacebuilding, says that Egypt is seeking to ensure efforts to tackle climate change and to advance peace work in tandem during COP27.

Speaking a common language

Climate Responses for Sustaining Peace (CRSP), a COP27 Presidency initiative, will be launched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh against a backdrop of increased climate impacts with far reaching effects on sustainable peace and development, particularly in Africa.

“Early on the Egyptian COP27 Presidency identified climate, peace, and development as overlapping areas ripe for an initiative. While climate change is not a direct cause of conflict it is increasingly seen as a potential risk multiplier that can aggravate vulnerabilities and structural weaknesses,” said Ahmed Abdel-Latif, director-general of the Cairo International Centre for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Peacebuilding.

An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published earlier this year underlined the urgent need to act on the nexus between climate adaptation and peacebuilding. The report was followed in June by the third edition of the Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development (AF) which discussed how to advance sustainable peace and development in Africa at a time of cascading risks and climate vulnerability. The issue is also addressed in the recently released African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan (2022-32).

Aiming to move from analysis to action, Abdel-Latif explained that CRSP seeks to mobilise leadership at COP27 to promote climate responses that contribute to sustainable peace and development, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected settings in Africa.

The initiative, based on four pillars, envisages scaling-up action based on national ownership, bearing in mind context specificity and in line with the focus on implementation at COP27.

“The actions under the pillars address some of the policy, knowledge and operational gaps across the interface between climate, peace and development,” said Abdel-Latif.

“Through this initiative, we want to ensure they work in synergy and speak a common language. Investments in climate adaptation can help strengthen peacebuilding and vice versa.”

The second pillar of CRSP is sustaining peace through climate-resilient food systems.

“We have a dynamic,” Abdel-Latif explained, “where conflicts spur food insecurity and food insecurity then feeds into conflicts and this is all exacerbated by increased climate impacts like, for example, the unprecedented droughts we are witnessing in the Horn of Africa. Now, more than 20 million are at risk of starvation in this region.”

The third pillar is about advancing durable solutions to the climate displacement nexus. The World Bank estimates that by 2050 more than 100 million Africans will be displaced due to climate change.

“Our societies are not equipped to deal with this large-scale phenomenon which will have huge impacts on the stability of our continent. Under this pillar, we want to look at how we can develop the tools and policies that reinforce our preparedness to address this, including through improved early warning capacities, the subject of other important COP27 Presidency initiatives.”

The final pillar is accelerating climate finance for sustaining peace. Finance is an important priority for COP. Africa receives just four per cent of global climate finance though it has contributed least to causing the climate crisis and is the continent most vulnerable to its devastating effects. COP27 President Designate Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri has emphasised the need for greater climate justice in this context and has called for an increase in the scale of finance pledges — especially for adaptation — at COP27.

CRSP will also pay careful attention to the needs of women, youth and communities in vulnerable situations because they are the ones most adversely impacted by both climate change and conflict. The initiative will be taken forward through a broad range of partnerships.

CRSP will be launched at COP27 on 12 November, said Abdel-Latif, and will be the first time in the history of COP that the presidency puts forward an initiative on climate and peace. The initiative is “aligned with the priorities of COP27 in its focus on implementation, moving to action, scaling up support particularly in terms of adaptation and finance and making sure that we provide holistic and integrated responses to the challenges ahead”.

Abdel-Latif pointed to other COP27 Presidency initiatives that relate to CRSP, including the early warning initiative with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and initiatives on food security and water.

Strengthening the capacities of African countries to address the impacts of climate change on efforts to advance sustainable peace and development is a key priority of CRSP and also a focus of the Cairo International Centre for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding (CCCPA) whose main mission is to reinforce the capacities of developing countries across the gamut of peace and security activities.

In 2019, the centre started a programme on climate security and development with the aim of strengthening awareness and understanding of the issues among African officials. To this end the centre developed a course on climate programming for sustaining peace in Africa and is now finalising core training materials.

CCCPA is the Secretariat of the Aswan Forum (AF) for Sustainable Peace and Development, a high-level African platform to strengthen interlinkages between peace, security and sustainable development which Egypt launched in 2019 when it was chair of the African Union.

Given that Egypt will be hosting this year’s COP, it was natural that the third edition of the forum should focus on the impacts of climate change on efforts to achieve sustainable peace and development in Africa, explained Abdel-Latif,

Asked about how COP27 might benefit from the conclusions reached during AF, Abdel-Latif pointed to this year’s examination by the Forum of how climate change impacts the peace and security landscape in Africa, particularly in terms of climate adaptation, displacement and the water-food-energy nexus, and how it underlined the need to address climate impacts on sustainable peace and development through better prevention, preparedness and integrated solutions and responses to strengthen resilience.

“The AF is based on partnerships. In this context, we work with strategic partners such as Japan, Sweden and the African Development Bank, and supporting partners such as the EU and International Organisation for Migration, as well institutional partners such as the UNDP, the World Bank and UN,” said Abdel-Latif.

“Within this framework, we are looking at operationalising AF conclusions, including at COP27 with a dedicated discussion, and will be working closely with partners.”

Addressing the interconnected crises, he added, requires collaborative efforts from all stakeholders to advance long-term solutions that strengthen resilience and the ability to address increased climate impacts.

CCCPA is an African Union centre of excellence and the only civilian training centre on peacekeeping in the Arab world. It was established by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1994 and its board of directors is chaired by Egypt’s foreign minister.

 

*A version of this article appears in print in the 27 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.