Last week, CMC took part in the Berlin Climate Security Conference (BCSC) for the third time. As part of the conference, we co-organised a workshop together with our European partners Center for International Peace Operations, Folke Bernadotte Academy, SIPRI and European Centre of Excellence for Civilian Crisis Management, focusing on the effects of climate change and environmental degradation on peace mediation and crisis management. 

The workshop discussions emphasised that the impacts of climate change are often most severe in regions where good governance and the rule of law are already compromised. Strengthening climate and environmental expertise among crisis management professionals is therefore essential. Furthermore, crisis management and peace mediation organisations should integrate climate security more clearly into their strategic planning and decision-making processes. 

The main conference highlighted the cross-cutting nature of climate security issues. For example, Germany’s newly released Strategy for Internal Security identifies climate security as one of the five key pillars of internal security