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Advancing the Environment, Peace and Security Agenda at the UN and beyond

The international community has so far been unable to keep pace with the increasing scale, speed, and complexity of environmental and climate risks facing humanity. Those risks are felt particularly acutely in conflict-affected and vulnerable countries. To explore ways to better protect people, planet, and peace for future generations, PAX has launched a new policy report on advancing the international Environment, Peace and Security Agenda within and beyond the UN system.

Image: Alexis Huguet/AFP - A peacekeeper from MONUSCO (the UN mission in the DR Congo), December 2021

The new PAX policy report highlights the need to improve the international prevention, mitigation, and response measures to address the complex interlinkages between the environment, climate, conflict and peace. Despite the attempts to reconfigure the multilateral governance system at the Summit of the Future in September 2024, those issues remained largely unaddressed and missing from the Summit’s outcome document, the Pact for the Future. Hence, there remain both gaps and opportunities for the international community to find alternative ways of advancing a more comprehensive and coordinated international Environment, Peace and Security (EPS) agenda. 

PAX’s policy report examines pathways for establishing, operationalizing and mainstreaming the EPS agenda across the UN system to foster greater coherence and impact. It maps current key actors and policy processes across four key areas of the EPS agenda: (1) environmental governance and resilience building, (2) environmental and humanitarian action, (3) environmental and climate considerations in UN’s peace and security architecture, and (4) legal and normative frameworks for environmental protection and accountability for conflict-linked damage. While much of the work required to deal with the EPS-related issues is already underway, existing efforts face numerous obstacles and limitations, which are analysed in depth in the report. 

To overcome those gaps and limitations and better integrate the EPS agenda within the UN and beyond, it is important not only to upscale, strengthen, and expand the existing efforts, but also to consider new solutions for improving the international community’s capacities to tackle environmental and climate concerns in conflict and at-risk settings. In this policy report, PAX suggests specific pathways, directed at mainstreaming the EPS considerations throughout the UN system, building up capacity and expertise of relevant stakeholders, enhancing coordination and data-sharing mechanisms, improving funding flows, and meaningful engagement with local stakeholders to drive sustainable and effective action on EPS issues. The policy report contains specific recommendations for UN Member States, international donors, and UN bodies. 

The policy report is a follow-up to the discussions at the high-level event “Advancing the Environment, Peace and Security Agenda at the Summit of the Future and Beyond”, which took place in September 2024. This project was made possible through the generous financial support of the Global Challenges Foundation. 

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