The interlinkages between climate, peace and security are posing new and evolving challenges the world over. When interacting with specific economic, social, political and demographic factors, climate change impacts may cause or enhance existing risks to peace and security. At the same time, fragility and conflict often impede climate action aimed at strengthening resilience and diminishing vulnerability to future shocks and stressors, keeping communities in a seemingly never-ending loop of fragility and vulnerability.

For humanitarian actors, this translates into a need for increased capacity to understand climate and environmental risks and develop evidence-based solutions at local, national and international levels, to continue delivering on their mandates and operations, while at the same time also contributing to building resilience.

In line with the Climate and Environment Charter for humanitarian organizations, this session aims to provide a space for discussion and exchange among practitioners, researchers and donors on how to enhance understanding of climate and environmental risks, and integrate them into humanitarian responses and efforts towards increased resilience, conflict prevention and sustaining peace. Through facilitated discussions and sharing of experiences and lessons learned, participants will explore potential approaches and solutions to key challenges, such as reconciling short-term humanitarian interventions with the often long-term nature of climate change impacts, and collaboration across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus to address the root causes of climate-related security risks and achieve sustainable outcomes.

This session will target researchers, practitioners and donors working at the intersection of climate, peace and security. This includes UN agencies, funds and programmes, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) operating at the national and local levels.

The expected outcomes of the session are as follows:

• Increased understanding of climate impacts and related security risks in specific conflict- and crisis-affected contexts
• Increased awareness of tools, methodologies and resources available within and outside the UN to identify climate-related security risks and take action to prevent, mitigate and manage such risks
• Increased integration and collaboration across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus in dealing with climate, peace and security

• Growing network of climate, peace and security practitioners to foster exchange of experiences, good practices and learnings