26 Jun 2023

It is appropriate for militaries to be concerned with climate change as it is their duty to address all credible threats to respective nations’ security.

The BDF commander, Lt Gen. Placid Segokgo said the phenomenon could not be ignored because its consequences were already affecting militaries’ operational environment.

Lt Gen. Segokgo said this on Monday at a symposium where the US-Africa Command (USAfricom) in collaboration with the Botswana Defence Force and the US Institute for Peace engaged African military partners on issues of security implications that emanated from climate change.

Issues on the table included ways of sharing ideas on climate change impacts on stability across the continent, particularly in regions already facing significant political, social and economic stress.

Lt Gen. Segokgo said the world was at a stage where climate change was no longer a myth, but a reality as proved by science and personal observations. He said that was evident through increasing temperatures and rainfall variability.

“We are caught up in an inescapable intricate web of uncertainty as the heat waves are more frequent and more severe, the summers are long, harsh and dry, the rainfall erratic, the droughts are long and severe, storms and floods are more devastating,” he said.

Lt Gen. Segokgo also said the impact of climate change continued to be felt in various economic sectors such as agriculture, water and energy infrastructure, rendering them less productive.

“Such then leads to rising food insecurity and water stress which could in turn lead to mass migration with potential to aggravate existing tensions between countries,” he said.

He said this would then give possibility to rise in tensions that could cause human-wildlife conflicts for shared resources such as pasture and water, or even conflict among international communities.

“This is why it is vital that we collaborate and treat climate change as a national, regional and global security priority,” he said.

The US-Africa Command (US-AfriCom) representative, Major General Kenneth Ekman, said the fact that the symposium attracted representatives from 36 countries amplified its seriousness.

“This is an indication of how we seriously view the challenge of climate change and its security impact. It is an indication that its implications affect us all and that no country is immune,” he said.

Major Gen. Ekman, who labelled climate change the greatest challenge of our generation, said that it exacerbated current challenges such as conflicts and security concerns, whose frequency and severity, he said, overwhelmed existing national capacities.

He said it was therefore upon all the concerned stakeholders to move beyond just disaster response and instead build shared skills and capacity for resilience and adaptation.

Major General Ekman said that it was key to all participants of the symposium to develop new solutions and foster deeper cooperation to address mounting climate-linked security challenges.

“Key questions we should ask ourselves and answer are among others, what impact climate change has on our individual countries, on future military operations, what the appropriate role is for the military to support governments and what are the opportunities where we could cooperate to build shared skills with neighbouring militaries,” he said.

For her part, director of climate, environment and conflict at the US Institute of Peace, Dr Tegan Blaine said climate change was a developmental issue that also impacted on peace, risked food security and frustrated economic development of many African countries.

She said the effects of climate change often forced people to look to their governments for help, which she said was not guaranteed looking at many competing national priorities.

“Failure to get such needed assistance might cause violence which may lead to some people seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, and this will in turn overwhelm the host countries. ENDS