Following a previous pilot project, the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities launched in 2020 the extra-budgetary project “Strengthening Responses to Security Risks from Climate Change in South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia”. The project is the main tool through which the OSCE provides assistance to participating States in the fight against climate change. Italy is among the main countries supporting the project, alongside the United States, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Poland, Luxembourg, Austria, Liechtenstein, Andorra, and France.
The project aims to enhance the understanding of security risks due to climate change, through a participatory and multi-stakeholder process that has allowed the mapping of climate risk areas (so-called “hotspots”) in all the OSCE regions concerned. The project also aims to promote the necessary measures of cross-border cooperation and adaptation strategies for some of the identified hotspots, in order to reduce the security implications of climate change.
It is HOT out there ☀️ Extreme weather events are a result of climate change and can exacerbate existing stressors, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and political instability. https://t.co/T1pfIWD7Th
— OSCE (@OSCE) July 20, 2022
The project supported by Italy thus contributes to the implementation of the historic Ministerial Decision on strengthening cooperation to address the challenges posed by climate change adopted in Stockholm in December 2021. The Decision is the first official OSCE document to emphasize that the effects of climate change can negatively impact prosperity, stability, and security in the OSCE area and to encourage OSCE participating States to cooperate in this sector.