Imbuing climate security with positive peace: a peace continuum approach to sustaining peace during climate crisis

Abstract Climate change impacts peacebuilding and is an important topic within the UN Security Council (UNSC). Yet, the UN's member states take conflicting positions on whether climate change should be framed as a security threat or a development issue, and several scholars have warned against its securitization. Introducing a ‘peace continuum’ approach to climate security, this policy paper shifts attention from a ‘for or against’ debate on framing climate change as a security threat, instead considering climate crisis as a call for rethinking security itself. A peace continuum approach connects climate finance and adaptation with a continuum of peace efforts. This broadens the outlook of security to integrate human and ecological security concerns, advocates more open knowledge systems (spanning across policy fields and scales), and offers a perspective on climate security that emphasizes ‘positive peace’. Imbuing climate security with the notion of positive peace resonates with peacebuilding norm developments around the primacy of politics, prevention and adaptive approaches. Grounding the discussion of a peace continuum approach in case-studies from the Horn of Africa, the paper highlights three major developments. First, new networked climate security governance has emerged within and around the UN and UNSC, showing promise for scaling up a peace continuum approach. Second, recognizing climate change as a security issue can enhance commitments to climate finance and adaptation, while finance and adaptation can contribute to peace dividends, including in ‘high-risk’ contexts. Third, regional climate security hubs are emerging as vehicles for regional–international knowledge exchanges, and serve as entry-points for flexible UN support, well suited to shifting peacebuilding trends away from large-scale missions. In a context of geopolitical competition, strained multilateralism and competing priorities, there is no automaticity ensuring the advancement of a progressive climate security agenda—achieving that will require continuous, committed efforts.