Russia’s Permanent Representative Nebenzia has vetoed a draft resolution at the UN Security Council meeting by Ireland and Niger on the climate and security nexus in several countries in Africa and the Middle East
The US responded by accusing Moscow of undermining the interests of the world. Why did Russia take this step?
Russia vetoed a draft resolution in the UN Security Council by Ireland and Niger. The document suggested that the organisation’s peacekeeping operations and political missions should consider the impact of climate change on the security situation in their assessments and activities. At the same time, Russia had previously repeatedly expressed scepticism in the UN Security Council about the linkage between climate change and conflicts.
The authors of the rejected draft stated that “the Security Council has repeatedly stressed the need for the UN, regional organisations and member states to take into account … the impact of the adverse effects of climate change on their activities, programmes and strategies” in countries. These are, in particular, the Lake Chad basin region, Somalia, Darfur, South Sudan, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as West and Central Africa, Cyprus and Iraq, RIA Novosti reports.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, said the resolution was undermining the interests of the whole world after Russia had vetoed it, Lenta.ru writes. Interestingly, India, as a non-permanent member of the UNSC, also spoke against it, while China abstained.
At the same time, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, called the resolution unacceptable. Moscow viewed the draft as a pretext to justify interference in the internal affairs of other countries. According to Nebenzy, the adoption of the initiative threatens to turn “a scientific and economic issue into a politicised one”.
The mission to the United Nations said, “It’s not a matter of concern for the fate of countries and people who are confronted with the problem of climate change”. Moscow sees an attempt to “create a new lever” with which to pressurize virtually any country through the UN Security Council, “because the problems of climate change are felt throughout the world”.
At the same time, the Kremlin disagrees with the assertion that “Moscow has let everyone down” by vetoing the UN Security Council, adding that Moscow “is a responsible participant in the climate agenda”. A similar point of view is held in India.
“Russia made the absolutely right decision not to go along with the majority behind the initiatives of the so-called progressive West. Moscow with this step showed that it defends its own interests, not someone else’s”, – political scientist Evgeniy Satanovskiy explained.
According to him, the idea of linking the climate with military conflicts is a brazen and blatant scam on the part of the West. “It turns out that all wars, all genocides and other tragedies in the history of mankind, starting with the death of the dinosaurs, were linked with the climate. It turned out that the West listened to Greta Tunberg with its mouth open for a reason”, – said the interlocutor ironically.
The expert agreed with the words of Vasily Nebenzi, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, that the adoption of the resolution may lead to intervention in the internal affairs of any country from the outside under the guise of “environmental concerns”.
“When you impose embargoes or sanctions against a country or bring in troops for political or economic reasons, it looks bad. It is quite another thing if you say that the planet’s ecology is dying because of that country. Then all means are justified. A very convenient tool for the US to try to weaken Russia, for example, or Iran, which supplies oil to China”, – the political scientist added.
“The initiative by Ireland and Niger resembles the ultra-left climate agenda and carries no constructive message,” said US political scientist Dmitry Drobnitsky. “The logic of the proponents of this resolution is as follows: only democratic countries, according to the collective West, can be successful from the climate point of view.
Russia absolutely correctly rejected this document and thus knocked the “climate stick” out of US hands. It has not beaten it out completely yet, but the process is already under way,” he stressed. At the same time, the expert agreed that climate change can ruin the lives of entire peoples, lead to mass migration and wars for resources. “But the resolution twists all this and basically says directly: if you emit a lot of CO2, you are fuelling conflicts on the planet. There is no way to agree with that. It is a tool to accuse any country of crimes and other atrocities,” the analyst explained.
In addition, he said, the West now needs the climate agenda to manage the international division of labour.
“To separate the political and environmental discourses, Russia should organise its own international platform to discuss climate change without affecting the political agenda in any way”, – Drobnitsky summarised.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov, Vzglyad