Stakeholders in climate security from all over the continent will today (Thursday) assemble for the 2023 Berlin Climate and Security Conference (BCSC) in Nairobi.
This will be the first ever African edition jointly organized by the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, the German Federal Foreign Office, and adelphi.
Since its inaugural edition in 2019, the annual conference has become the global forum connecting governments, international organizations, experts, and practitioners working to better address the impacts of climate change on international peace and security through diplomacy, development and defence approaches.
BCSC-Nairobi will focus on sharing best practice examples from Africa, progress in multilateral engagement on climate security, and strengthening synergies between multilateral initiatives like Climate Responses for Sustaining Peace (CRSP) and Climate for Peace (C4P) to ensure climate, peace and security risks to Africa are a top priority on international agendas going into COP28.
According to Foreign Affairs PS Dr Korir Singoei, Climate change remains the biggest challenge of our time as it compromises the integrity of the eco systems we depend on, and pose an existential threat to humanity and biodiversity.
He said climate change is a threat multiplier and has become a major threat to peaceful co-existence among communities, within and across borders.
“Kenya has made significant strides in the efforts to combat climate change and is confident that partnership with the Berlin Climate Security Conference holds great potential, both in augmenting locally-led initiatives to combat climate change and climate-related risks, as well as in opening new frontiers for collaboration. African countries can be a substantial part of the solution to the climate crisis, as they are well endowed with natural resources for deploying green manufacturing and industrial capacity, and removing carbon at scale,” he said.
According to Janani Vivekananda, Head of Programme, Climate Diplomacy and Security, 70pc of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world are the most fragile.
“And 28 of the top 32 of these countries are in Africa. This confluence of vulnerability and capacity constraints should mean that countries in conflict are prioritized by climate finance. Yet, the reality is that these countries remain the most neglected by climate finance,” said Janani Vivekananda.
BCSC-Nairobi will bring together experts to better understand these challenges and aims to promote outcomes and agreements that incorporate better climate financing that is conflict-sensitive, climate-risk informed, easier to access to reach those most affected, find better linkages across sectors and regions and scale up intra-regional learning
