XPost: alt.global-warming, alt.society.liberalism, sac.politics
XPost: alt.politics.international

UNITED NATIONS – An African woman whose people are nomads
constantly searching for food and water told Security Council
members Wednesday they must consider climate change as a
security risk that is fueling extremism, conflict and migration.

Hindou Ibrahim said in a speech to the council that climate
change is affecting the daily lives of people in the vast Sahel
region who depend on agriculture, fishing and livestock and are
struggling to survive.

She said the scarcity of resources has fueled internal migration
as well as migration through Africa to Europe, sparked local
conflicts that become national and regional, and led to the
growth of terrorist groups.

Ibrahim, an activist from Chad who co-chairs the International
Indigenous People Forum on Climate, which promotes U.N. action
on climate change, urged the council and the broader
international community to take action to help them cope.

"Solutions are there," she said. "Why not give them access to
energy? You can help them go to school. You can help them to get
health (care). You can help them to do another alternative in
their life, and keep them in peace and think about the future."

Ibrahim said nomadic pastoralists don't know there is a Security
Council where people think about peace around the world but they
are living climate change.

It is "deep humiliation" if a man in the nomadic community can't
feed his family because "his dignity is not respected," Ibrahim
said. To preserve their dignity, the options for nomadic men are
grim: Either stay home and join a terror group and fight and
die, or leave and risk dying in the sea.

"They do not have any choice, but you — you do have one because
you choose to sit in the council. You choose to fight for our
peace and security around the world," Ibrahim told council
members. "So you must consider climate change as a security
risk. You must give them hope — the men, women, young people.
But you must give them beyond hope because ... they deserve to
be alive."

The council meeting focusing on "climate-related security risks"
was organized by Sweden, which holds the body's rotating
presidency this month.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, who chaired the
meeting and visited the Lake Chad region last week, said she met
migrants and refugees displaced by drought and floods whose
livelihoods have evaporated, "giving rise to tensions."

"It is time for the Security Council to catch up with the
changing reality on the ground," she said. "It's been seven
years since we last debated climate and security. It is past
time for us to deepen our understanding of how climate change
interacts with drivers of conflict."

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, who traveled with
Wallstrom, told the council that "while the impact of climate
change may be spread unevenly across different regions today, no
country will be spared from its consequences in the long-term."

Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, called
climate change "a grave threat" but objected to the council
taking up the issue.

"We are creating an illusion that the Security Council will
tackle climate change," he said, when it has no expertise to
combat it.

Nauru's president, Baron Waqa, who chairs the Pacific Small
Island Developing States, told the council that security risks
from climate change have only grown since his predecessor
"sounded the alarm" to the council seven years ago.

"The council has taken a few tepid steps in the right direction,
but it is not enough," he said.

Waqa reiterated the group's call for a U.N. special
representative on climate and security to monitor "potential
tipping points," engage in preventive diplomacy, and "support
post-conflict situations where climate change is a risk factor."

Iraqi Minister of Water Resources Hassan Al-Janabi said
declining rainfall and "unsustainable use of water resources"
are exacerbating water scarcity, causing displacement "and
forced migration."

"We are concerned that the major river basins, in Iraq and the
rest of the Middle East in particular, are subject to the
greatest ever threat, resulting primarily from climate change,
as well as competition for use and over-control of shared water
resources, that will ultimately result in unsustainable
utilization of water," he said.

Al-Janabi warned that the absence of bilateral or multilateral
agreements or regional arrangements on sharing water "is
contributing to potential conflicts that could be and should be
avoided."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/07/11/african-woman-tells-un- that-climate-change-is-security- risk.html?intcmp=ob_article_sidebar_video&intcmp=obnetwork

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