UN General Assembly chief says curbing climate change would make world more peaceful and safer

Harms from climate change are the biggest threat to world peace, the president of the United Nations General Assembly says.

“To those who are arguing that in these times we have to focus more on peace and security, one can only say the climate crisis is the biggest security threat of our century,” General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock told The Associated Press in an interview at the U.N. climate talks at the edge of the Amazon.

“We can only ensure long-lasting peace and security over the world if we fight the climate crisis altogether and if we join hands in delivering on sustainable development because they are heavily interconnected,” said Baerbock, a former German foreign minister.

Baerbock pointed to droughts and other damage from climate extremes in places such as Chad, Syria and Iraq. When crops die, people go hungry and then migrate elsewhere or fight over scarce water, she said.

“This is a vicious circle,” Baerbock said. “If we do not stop the climate crisis it will fuel hunger and poverty which will fuel again displacement and by that will challenge regions in a different way, leading again to instability, crisis and most often also conflict. So, fighting the climate crisis is also the best security insurance.”

But at the same time, dealing with climate change's problems can make the world more peaceful, Baerbock said, pointing to conflicts over water in Central Asia. There, an agreement on water became “a booster for peaceful cooperation and peaceful settlement.”

Drought can take a long time to make an impact, but storms made worse by Earth's warming atmosphere can strike in a flash. Baerbock pointed to last month's Hurricane Melissa decimating Jamaica and two typhoons smacking the Philippines.

“Achievements of sustainable development can be diminished in just hours,'' Baerbock said. That's why foreign aid from rich nations to poor to help deal with climate disasters and adapt to future ones "are also investments in stable societies and regions," she said.

Baerbock, a veteran of climate conferences, said people scoffed at the young people of small island nations who filed a suit in the International Court of Justice about climate change, damage and their future. But the court's ruling in July that action must be taken to limit warming “shows the power of the world if it works together,” she said.

Small island nations have said they will take the court's decision to the U.N. General Assembly, where votes are decided by majority unlike the veto power of the U.N. security council or the consensus unanimity of U.N. climate talks.

“Now it’s up to the majority of the member states if they want to bring a resolution forward underlining the importance of this case,” said Baerbock, adding that she has to follow the desires of the majority of the 193 U.N. member states.

“The vast majority of member states has called not only at the last climate conferences but also here in Belem for transitioning away from our fossil world, not because of the climate crisis, but because they underline that this is the best security investment for all of us,” Baerbock said.