Russia Kills U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Resolution

Russia on Monday rejected the notion that climate change is a threat to international peace and security, vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution that aimed to make global warming more central issue.

QUICK FACTS:
  • Russia and India voted no to a United Nations proposal that would have called for “incorporating information on the security implications of climate change” so the council could “pay due regard to any root causes of conflict or risk multipliers.”
  • The proposal also would have asked the U.N. secretary-general to make climate-related security risks “a central component” of conflict prevention strategies and to report on how to address those risks in specific hotspots.
  • Monday’s resolution would have been the first devoted to climate-related security danger as an issue of its own, notes The Associated Press, some 113 of the U.N.’s 193 member countries supporting the proposal.
  • Adding climate change to the Security Council’s agenda would only deepen global divisions that were pointed up by last month’s climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, the opponents said.
WHAT RUSSIA SAID:
  • “Positioning climate change as a threat to international security diverts the attention of the council from genuine, deep-rooted reasons of conflict in the countries on the council’s agenda,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said, adding that the resolution would turn “a scientific and economic issue into a politicized question” and give the council a pretext to intervene in virtually any country.

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