Ideas for Action

Forging a strategic partnership to overcome global climate change


Earlier articles published by MAHB called for the UN Security Council (UNSC) to adopt a binding resolution entitled the Earth Armistice, under Article 25 of the UN Charter, that requires all member states to devote from 10-20% of their current defense budget to combatting global climate change (See Articles here). This article advocates how the UNSC and the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) can work together, complimenting each other strengths, and thus forging a Strategic Partnership to address and overcome global climate change.

Current and coming catastrophic climate change won’t go away with more speeches, or conferences; climate change is accelerating and surging, causing greater and more droughts, wildfires, sea level rise, species extinction, hurricanes and other extreme weather events, constituting an existential threat potentially to all of life on the planet, now named the Sixth Extinction event. So, the time for decisive political action is now upon us or much, if not all, is lost…. On such decisive action is for the UNSC to create an Earth Armistice and resulting Climate Fund; only the UNSC has the legal powers to do so—outlined in the MAB article mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/earth-armistice-updated/. Thus, the UNSC must take the first step in adopting an Earth Armistice that is binding on all member-states. The Military Staff Committee (MSC) can help the Council allocate the funds as well as help verify the armistice.
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The UNEP has a critical role to play as well; specifically, the UNEP has the decisive mandate within the UN system, as well as the expertise, experience and networks needed to help decide how the resulting funds from the Earth Armistice are to be allocated and spent. The Earth Armistice could potentially raise hundreds of billions of dollars yearly that must be allocated to those regional intergovernmental organizations, member states, and private institutions that can research, develop and rapidly deploy massive negative emission technologies (NETs), reforestation and afforestation efforts and other critically now needed; preserving biodiversity by preserving habitats via purchasing them, if necessary, must be a top priority. Such mitigation measures are absolutely necessary in order to halt and then reverse global climate change and its worst effects. So, the mandate and experience of the UNEP will be instrumental in insuring that these funds are allocated to the most effective actors possible, especially in the developing countries.

In short, the UNSC and the UNEP must work together in a strategic partnership to implement immediately the critical goals of the Earth Armistice in effectively addressing, abating and reversing climate global change.
Thomas Boudreau Ph.D.


Document: ONE-PAGE-ART-MAB-UNSG-UNEP-AND-THE-EARTH-ARMISTICE.docx