Increasingly, climate change is seen as a global security problem. It would lead to conflicts about territory, water and other resources, and also to large scale migration. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs therefore wants to have climate as a topic on the agenda of the Security Council. They will plead for this when they get a temporary seat in the Security Council in 2018.

During this HagueTalks, Alexander Verbeek, founder of the Planetary Security Initiative, talks about the interrelation between security and climate. Two climate and security experts from Darfur and Bangladesh will talk about the influence of the climate on their home countries, and how they attempt to diminish the security risks. After, we will discuss the importance of considering climate change a security problem with the three of them and the audience. What is the impact of this framing upon the international approach to climate change? Should the Security Council indeed place the topic of climate on their agenda? And what else is needed to reduce the security risks of climate change?

About the speakers

• Awadalla Hamid Mohamed (Darfur). Awadalla Hamid works for the INGO Practical Action in his capacity as environmental conservation manager. He has 13 years experience in the field of community mobilization for rural development and environmental conservation, as well as in community capacity building with regards coping with climate change.
• Major General Anm Muniruzzaman (Bangladesh). President of Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies. He is also the Chairman of Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change. In this capacity he has worked extensively on security implications of climate change. His writings on climate security issues have also been published widely. Earlier this year he briefed the UN Security Council on security implications of sea level rise and has also spoken at US Senate briefing on climate security. He was also named in Climate 25, a global list of strategic voices on climate change.
• Alexander Verbeek founded the Institute for Planetary Security, where he works on projects related to the impact of the changing climate, water, food, energy, economic and demographic conditions. He is also an Associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) as well as at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). He has been a diplomat for the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1992 until 2016. His last position was Strategic Policy Advisor on Global Issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. He is on the board of advisors of several international environmental initiatives. Alexander is often asked for public speaking, lecturing at universities or chairing international meetings.

Moderator is journalist and political scientist Alberta Opoku.

About this program

This HagueTalks is organized in cooperation with the Planetary Security Conference, which will be held on December 12-13, 2017 in The Hague. The theme of this year’s conference is “From Analysis to Action”. The conference and associated Planetary Security Initiative was set up in 2015 by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is being organized by a consortium led by Clingendael.

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