Climate change and terrorism: the challenges for multilateralism

Climate change poses one the most serious challenges to societies across the globe. As a transnational phenomenon, the action of a State alone cannot prevent, combat or mitigate the adverse consequences of climate change. The complexity of climate change also lies in its impacts in transversal sectors such as economics, politics, science, ethics, among others. Moreover, the scarcity of essential goods, material or immaterial, generates tensions in any community and climate change have implications in the livelihoods of people whenever there is a drought, a hurricane or a tsunami. These extreme conditions force people to displace in their country or to migrate and exacerbate the fragility of states which terrorist groups may exploit in their own profit. Awareness of climate change in all its dimensions has led states to recognize the importance of cooperation in solving domestic problems caused by the effects of climate change. Dialogue in multilateral arenas and action plans sanctioned by as many countries as possible, ensuring global action, becomes the most effective answer to climate change. Never have climate change issues had so much attention and concern from heads of state and government and public opinion. This can be seen in the diversity of high-level summits and panels in multilateral forums such as the UN, the European Union and security organizations such as NATO where climate change has been the central theme. From the above mentioned ideas, it is important to better understand the nexus between climate change and terrorism, as well as how multilateralism can respond to both phenomena, and this will constitute the core of this paper.