Isra-Mart srl:Figueres warns tackling climate change is critical to world peace

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The head of the UN's climate change secretariat has urged defence chiefs to invest a larger portion of their military budgets in climate change mitigation measures, in a bid to reduce the risk of conflict associated with global warming impacts.

Speaking to Spanish policy chiefs and military leaders in Madrid yesterday, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, warned that if left unabated, the impact of climate change on water supplies, weather patterns, and sea levels could cause widespread conflict.

Specifically, she said the impact of global warming would increase poverty and governments would struggle to meet the basic needs of their citizens.

"No nation can flourish if its citizens are faced with climate change impacts and increasing prospects for conflict," she said. "The voice of the defence establishment is one of the strongest voices of persuasion at national level, so I urge you to invest in a way that can lead us all towards a peace based on cooperation rather than conflict."

She warned that the global military budget, which grew 50 per cent in the last decade, will continue to increase unless governments spend more on measures to prevent climate change such as investment in low-carbon technology.

"Even under current trends, the rate of defence spending growth could account for a major part of the money needed to cut global emissions and to help the vulnerable, often in the most unstable areas of the world, to protect their societies from crumbling under climate pressures," she said.

She also warned that the agreement, formalised at Cancun last year, to limit global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius would not necessarily save some small island states or limit water stress in Africa.

"It is critical that the Cancun Agreements are speedily built upon and that every opportunity is used by all sectors of economies to implement the agreements," she said.

In the US and Europe the military have often emerged as leading advocates of climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, pioneering a range of clean technologies designed to reduce emissions and enhance energy security.

For example, the UK recently announced a project to trial renewable energy technologies at bases in Afghanistan, while the US military has emerged as a leading investor in jet biofuels.