Oh, Crap - the Security Council Isn't Up to Climate Change



Climate change is apparently much too touchy a subject for it to be considered by the United Nations Security Council. 

Putting that on the shoulders of the very people who are supposed to avert wars could instead lead to war?

Russia has vetoed a first-of-its-kind UN security council resolution casting the climate crisis as a threat to international peace and security – a vote that sank a years-long effort to make global heating more central to decision-making in the UN’s most powerful body.

Stronger storms, rising seas, more frequent floods and droughts and other effects of warming could inflame social tensions and conflict, potentially “posing a key risk to global peace, security and stability”, the proposed resolution said. Of the UN’s 193 member countries, 113 supported it, including 12 of the council’s 15 members.

But India and veto-wielding Russia voted no, while China abstained.

Their envoys said the issue should remain with broader UN groups, such as the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Adding climate change to the security council’s purview would only deepen global divisions that were pointed up by last month’s climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, the opponents said. The talks ended in a deal that recommitted to a key target for limiting warming and broke some new ground but fell short of the UN’s three big goals for the conference.

Russia can block the Security Council from embracing the issue of climate change but that won't prevent climate change, as a driver of migration, resource rivalries and armed conflict, from littering the desks at the UNSC.

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