UN Security Council Arria Formula Meeting Stepping up Preventive Action: From Environmental Challenges to Opportunities for Peace

Thank you, Mr President.  

• Climate change undermines agrifood systems, jeopardizes livelihoods, makes land and water scarcer, reduces biodiversity, and compromises the environment. 
• This can increase competition and conflict over natural resources, cause human and livestock mobility and push the most vulnerable to the brink of starvation.   
• Ultimately, food producers bear the brunt of impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and land degradation, as they rely on natural resources for their livelihood and income.  
• Furthermore, the consequences of climate change are not gender-neutral, with women taking on more work for less income in weather extremes.  
• We must recognize that investments in agriculture are not only an integral part of the solution to the climate crisis, they can also help prevent competition and conflict over natural resources. 
• This is why FAO has been working closely with humanitarian, development and peace actors to:  
  • undertake joint analyses, 
  • strengthen early warning systems, 
  • promote climate services, 
  • scale up anticipatory action,  
  • support local solutions, and 
  • empower women to have agency.  

• Let me conclude by sharing four recommendations: 
  1. One, support climate-related early warning systems and climate services that integrate conflict dynamics to advance evidence-based risk analysis.
  2. Two, replicate specialized climate, peace and security advisor roles in UN missions and regional hubs for analyses, information sharing and coordination.
  3. Three, foster trust, mutual understanding and inclusive dialogue, by empowering women, in discussions around sustainable natural resource management, environmental protection and climate adaptation.
  4. Four, invest in climate-resilient agrifood systems and related infrastructure – including in fragile and conflict-affected contexts – drawing on disaster risk reduction and community-based resilience approaches.   

Thank you.