Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup – Chief of the UK’s Defence Staff – opens the conference, pitching for a frontline role for the military in the response to climate change.
Key questions for military planners. Is the pace of climate change likely to be quicker than the world can respond to safely? In the most unstable parts of the world, will the consequences of climate change ‘pour petrol onto a burning fire’?
“Although hard power cannot solve climate change,” Stirrup argues, “military power may be needed to respond to the consequences.”
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David Steven is a senior fellow at the UN Foundation and at New York University, where he founded the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children and the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, a multi-stakeholder partnership to deliver the SDG targets for preventing all forms of violence, strengthening governance, and promoting justice and inclusion. He was lead author for the ministerial Task Force on Justice for All and senior external adviser for the UN-World Bank flagship study on prevention, Pathways for Peace. He is a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of The Risk Pivot: Great Powers, International Security, and the Energy Revolution (Brookings Institution Press, 2014). In 2001, he helped develop and launch the UK’s network of climate diplomats. David lives in and works from Pisa, Italy.
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