On 19 October, Margot Wallström and Helen Clark, members of the international expert panel advising SIPRI’s Environment of Peace initiative, addressed a virtual seminar on peace and climate change organized by the International Peace Bureau, the Olof Palme International Center and the International Trade Union Confederation.
Margot Wallström, Chair of the Environment of Peace expert panel and former Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Commissioner for the Environment and United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, introduced the initiative. She stressed the need for new thinking in dealing with the complex interactions between environmental change and security: ‘The destiny of others is also our destiny, like never before. We need to focus on children, on the next generation, to establish long-term thinking in politics. And to do that, we need to work together.’
Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Head of the UN Development Programme, addressed a range of issues, including the importance of a just and peaceful transition to sustainability: ‘One has to find win–win ways of supporting our climate and ecosystems, while also ensuring human beings have the means to survive and thrive.’
The seminar was part of a series being organized under the project Common Security 2022. Watch a recording of the seminar here.
Read more about the Environment of Peace initiative. Watch Margot Wallström and other panellists discussing the initiative and their involvement in it on SIPRI’s YouTube channel.