Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

n 17 April, for the first time ever, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) debated the relationship between ?Energy, Security and Climate?, based on a concept paper put forward by the United Kingdom.

?A major part of Jaffna and other northern areas will be submerged when the sea-level rises. So people are fighting and dying over areas that may soon not be there.?

For its part, the UK`s concept paper outlined several ways in which it believes climate change will impact on the likelihood of conflict, listing border disputes, migration, energy supplies, other resource shortages (notably, freshwater, cultivable land, crop yields and fish stocks), societal stress and humanitarian crises:

And, the paper also noted, ?parts of the developing world are both particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and least equipped to cope with them.?

Viewed from outside, fractious and ideological politics in the Security Council just highlight the limits of security perceptions based on Cold War certainties, and must seem a million miles away from the looming problems of human insecurity faced by ordinary Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Pacific Islanders and others because of the consequences of climate change on their lives. Maybe it`s time to ask how their perspectives can be brought into the process in order to keep it real, rather than rhetorical.