Over the past decades, few concepts have gained such prominence as resilience. There has been an explosion of research and policies into ways to promote resilient systems, but the content has often lacked a clear definition of what resilience actually means, let alone how to apply resilience thinking. Resilience is the capacity of a system, be it an individual, a forest, a city or an economy, to deal with change and continue to develop. It is about how humans and nature can use shocks and disturbances like a financial crisis or climate change to spur renewal and innovative thinking.
Maintaining international peace and security constitutes the very core of the UN’s mandate. However, we must recognise with regret that the UN has not been able to live up to its purpose of saving future generations from the scourge of war. While any accuracy in calculating the number of wars depends on a definition of ‘war’, experts estimate that since 1945 the world has witnessed over 200 armed conflicts. The Charter, reflecting the security situation of 1945, assumed that the UN would mainly be dealing with inter-state conflicts. Today, most of the threats to international peace and security are related to increasingly complex intra-state armed conflicts as well as violence perpetrated by non-state actors that transcends national borders with regional and global implications. The challenges related to armed conflicts of today are internationalised and further complicated by the potential effects of climate change.
The purpose of the Seminar Series was to address these issues, to present relevant research and discuss options and opportunities that could influence the many opportunities arising in on-going UN-led processes related to Climate Change and Peacebuilding.
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Professor Johan Rockström, Executive Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, presented the planetary boundaries concept, which is one of the most significant attempts to provide scientific guidelines for improved stewardship of the planet. It was introduced in 2009 by a group of 28 renowned international scientists and further developed in 2015. They argue that if humanity stays within these nine boundaries we can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come. Crossing them could generate abrupt or irreversible environmental changes. The study warns that four of identified nine planetary boundaries have been crossed as a result of human activity: climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen). Two of these, climate change and biosphere integrity, are what the scientists call “core boundaries”. Significantly altering either of these “core boundaries” would drive the Earth System into a new state.
Professor Peter Wallensteen, Senior Professor at Uppsala University, presented global conflict trends, the dilemmas of international organizations (notably the action/inaction of the UN Security Council) and the possibilities this can provide for regional cooperation. In particular, the presentation focused on matters of early conflict prevention, Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and conflict-implications of climate change.