UNSC to discuss climate change-related issues was opposed after veto-wielding Russia and India voted against it. The draft resolution, piloted by Ireland and Niger, had been in the making for several months and wanted to create a formal space in the Security Council for discussions on climate change and its importance on international security.
The plan was sponsored by Niger and Ireland, who claimed that 113 countries, which included permanent Security Council members the U.S., the U.K., and France, backed their view to integrating climate-related security risks into the UNSC’s conflict prevention mandate. However, after a heated debate and a strong counter by Indian Permanent Representative T.S.Tirumurti, the proposal was vetoed by Russia, and the UNSC reported 12 in favor, 2 against as well as an abstention from China.
What is this Draft opposed by India
The UN already has a specialized agency, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC, for debating all matters related to climate change. The parties to the UNFCCC — over 190 countries — meet many times every year, including at a two-week year-ending conference like the one at Glasgow, to work on a global approach to combat climate change. It is this process that has given rise to the Paris Agreement, and its predecessor the Kyoto Protocol, the international instrument that is designed to respond to the climate change crisis.
The Security Council, on the other hand, exists primarily to prevent conflicts and maintain global peace.
For the last few years, however, a few European countries, led by Germany, have been lifting for a role for Security Council in climate change discussions as well, arguing that climate change had an international security dimension. Climate change-induced food or water shortage, loss of habitat or livelihood, or migration can exacerbate existing conflicts or even create new ones. This can have implications for the UN field missions that are deployed across the world in peacekeeping actions.
The draft resolution piloted by Ireland and Niger was not the first attempt at bringing climate change on Security Council’s agenda. Last year, a similar, stronger resolution was proposed by Germany. However, it was never put to vote because of possible objections from the United States, which had made it clear that it would block any such attempt with a veto. Germany’s two-year term at the Security Council was over last year, but the proposal had other backers, and Ireland and Niger agreed to refresh the draft resolution. With the US position shifting decisively under new President Joe Biden, the draft resolution had rational chances of getting approved if China and Russia, the known opponents of the proposal, had agreed to abstain.
Why did India vote in support of Russia
Apart from a close multilateral partnership with Russia, reaffirmed during a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the Foreign and Defence Minister 2+2. India’s stand on the proposal is consistent with a desire not to allow the UNSC too broad a mandate to “intervene” and overreach on sovereign issues. While the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which held the CoP conference in Glasgow last month collates the voluntary contributions of countries to battle climate change and promote sustainability, India believes these are not issues where the UNSC should interfere. India even suggested that it would support a more limited draft that focused exclusively on the Sahel region of North Africa, where desertification of arid areas is directly sparking water-related conflict, but this was not considered, and India then recorded its first negative vote in this term at the UNSC. The Chinese representative, also said that UNSC should only consider security risks driven by climate change, based on “country-by-country or situation-by-situation” analysis.