U.N. Security Council to Study Climate

UNITED NATIONS -- The first Security Council debate on climate change will focus on the impact of global warming on issues that can spark conflicts including border disputes and access to energy, water and food, Britain's U.N. Mission said Thursday.

Britain holds the council presidency this month and is organizing the open meeting on April 17 to highlight what its ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, calls "one of the big challenges for the world for the next century." British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, who will preside, has invited the 14 other council members to send ministers to the high-level discussion.

In a "concept paper" circulated to council members, Britain set out its objective for the meeting _ "to raise awareness of a set of significant future security risks facing the international community" if it fails to address the need to increase economic growth without expanding the use of fossil fuels for energy, which accelerates climate change.

"The focus of the debate will be on the security implications of a changing climate, including through its impact on potential drivers of conflict (such as access to energy, water, food and other scarce resources, population movements and border disputes)," the paper said.

Britain said "a significant proportion of current threats to international peace and security are disputes over borders or land" and melting ice and rising sea levels caused by climate change are likely to result in major changes to the shape of countries.

The paper said many millions of people could be displaced. While migration doesn't lead directly to conflict, it said changes in population and ethnic composition "can increase the potential for instability and conflict."

Britain said conflicts are still likely to result from national and regional power struggles; differences in ideology; ethnic, religious and national tensions; and severe economic, social or political inequality.

"The cumulative impacts of climate change could exacerbate these drivers of conflict, and particularly increase the risk to those states already susceptible to conflict," it said.

The paper noted that parts of the developing world are "particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and least equipped to cope with them" because of instability, current or recent conflicts. It cited the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, parts of the Middle East and parts of Asia and the Pacific.