Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Climate and its contribution to instability and insecurity will be a big part of what we are doing. We need to be clear, however, that there are powerful states on the Security Council which do not accept that climate change has anything to do with international security and has no place on the UN Security Council agenda. The first thing we have to do is work with other member states to actually ensure that climate change and climate justice is part of the security agenda globally. My understanding is that ten of the 15 members currently on the Security Council accept that. However, others do not and will veto attempts to even bring climate change into the space of Security Council debate.

It is not as simple as saying this is important to us and we are going to bring it to the Security Council. We have to be smart enough to be able to build alliances around issues that we care about and on which we have credibility. This will allow us to be able to bring about policy change and a change of approach on the Security Council with the permanent five who ultimately have a veto to prevent actions and with the other ten members. Climate will be a big part of what we are trying to do and we have already committed to that.

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