Climate finance and peace—tackling the climate and humanitarian crisis

Abstract

2021's Conference of Parties, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26), is crucially important as governments—for the first time since the Paris Agreement—are expected to agree on concrete commitments and greater ambitions to limit global warming to 1·5°C. COP26 President-Designate Alok Sharma stated that delivery of US$100 billion in climate finance is going to be the key to whether the goals of COP26 succeed or fail. At the same time, people worldwide have started acknowledging the impacts of the climate crisis on peace and security—otherwise called the climate security nexus.1, 2 The concern then becomes where and how objectives and investments in adaptation and peacebuilding can be aligned, and how trade-offs between climate finance, peace, and security can be minimised or avoided.