Statement at the UN Security Council meeting on Climate and Security

Mr President, Secretary-General, distinguished briefer and dear Colleagues,

Thank you, Ireland, for convening this meeting and thank you Secretary-General for your remarks and your leadership.

I would like to highlight four points:

We must keep the same collective sense of urgency to stop climate change as we are demonstrating when facing the pandemic. We must also collectively seek solutions to stop climate change as efficiently as we developed the vaccines, putting serious resources in and working with our capable private sector. We must get much better in just allocation of the costs of saving our planet. And we must also keep and develop scientific data-based approach on resolving this problem. Let me now elaborate on these points.

Little more than a month ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its new report and highlighted that human influence is warming the planet faster than we have since thought. We must not lose sight of those who are most vulnerable to climate change. Many of them do not have the capacity to cope with climate-related security risks and they will need significant assistance and support from our international community. For this reason, Estonia has allocated almost 9 million Euros during the period of 2011-2020 and we are keen to continue with this kind of support.

The UN Security Council has the scope and tools to address climate-related security risks effectively and do so systematically. Although the Council has increased its engagement on those risks in the past few years, much more can be done to integrate the knowledge of climate-related security risks into all aspects of our work and mainstream them.

In fact, the whole UN system should be better informed on security risks induced by the climate change. In this context, a systematic approach is urgently needed. We need a Security Council resolution on climate and security – only this way we can make a difference. It is of utmost importance that the Secretary-General of the United Nations receives a mandate to collect data and to coordinate policy to that aim.

Regular reporting taking into account regional specifics would be a major step forward towards developing really tangible prevention measures. And only a number of UN peace operations reflect climate and security risks in their mandates. It is important to continue integrating climate related risks in their activities too.

Direct and indirect security implications of climate change are not the only climate-related security risks of course. Our own climate policy can also pose risks. Green transition as every other transition does involve a competitive element where some are obviously doing better than others.

Knowledge, tools, and resources necessary for transition are not equally available to all of us. To avoid fuelling marginalisation and propagating of fundamental views, we need to ensure that transition is just and inclusive to keep collectively the global public with us. Impacts of climate change do not recognize national borders, neither should our knowledge and best mitigation and adaptation practices.

We must truly collaborate for the common good!

But collaboration can only be relied on trust. To build that trust we need transparency, communication, and data sharing. Data is critical for developing multilateralism. Without reliable and timely accessible data, we cannot be successful.

To that end, Estonia has launched the Data for the Environment Alliance (DEAL), which will support the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in developing a global environmental data strategy by 2025. We hereby invite all countries to join this alliance!

Colleagues,

Next two months will be of critical importance for climate action, as we are leading up to COP26 in Glasgow. This will decide whether this decade will be remembered as the decade when we started to save the planet or the beginning of the end.

Thank you!