UNITED NATIONS, United States: Niger called Thursday for a UN resolution formally linking climate change and security issues around the world but Russia, China and India opposed the idea.
President Mohamed Bazoum made the appeal at a meeting of the council, where his country holds the presidency in December.
Niger hopes for a vote on a draft resolution that asks UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “to integrate climate-related security risk as a central component into comprehensive conflict-prevention strategies.”
Diplomats say that Russia has threatened to veto the draft.
“For us, a direct link between terrorism and climate change is far from obvious,” Russian UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council.
A resolution would cause confusion and overlap with other forums dealing with global warming, he said.
Bazoum said the Security Council needed “an integrated and coordinated approach” to boost its ability to understand the impact of climate change.
France backed the approach, saying there was a “clear link” between conflict and climate change, with food insecurity and scarce water allowing armed groups to recruit more easily.
The United States has also said climate change is a security issue.
Last year Germany dropped plans for a similar resolution because the United States under Donald Trump threatened to veto it, but President Joe Biden’s administration has backed the initiative.
At UN, a call to recognize climate change causes conflict
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At UN, a call to recognize climate change causes conflict
- President Mohamed Bazoum made the appeal at a meeting of the council, where his country holds the presidency in December
- Diplomats say that Russia has threatened to veto the draft
End of US-Russia nuclear pact a ‘grave moment’: UN chief
- Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the United States and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear deal, as the existing treaty was set to expire in a “grave moment for international peace and security.”
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general added that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples.”
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time — the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” he said, without giving more details.
Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework.”
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
