Lindsay Getschel, a Research Assistant at Stimson’s Environmental Security Program, addressed the United Nation’s Security Council on the threats posed by climate change. Speaking as a youth representative, she recommended concrete steps the Council should take to mitigate those threats:

• Formally recognize climate change as a threat to international peace and security.
• Require deployed UN missions to assess how climate change will impact local youth and how youth can be involved in building resilience and sustainability.
• Require deployed UN missions to transition to clean energy in the field, to help mitigate climate change as well as build more sustainable communities.

Getschel spoke at the invitation of the mission of the Dominican Republic as a youth and civil society representative.

Stimson’s innovative work in climate and energy

Stimson’s Environmental Security Program is conducting innovative research on climate change and ocean risk and how social and economic vulnerabilities, poor governance, migration, and a decline in fisheries will impact the stability of coastal cities. By overlaying these factors, Getschel’s work identifies the places most at-risk for climate-driven instability in order to target policies, investment, and aid. The project is initially focusing on the Caribbean and will expand to East Africa and Southeast Asia.

In calling for UN peacekeeping deployments to transition to clean energy, Getschel also highlighted Stimson’s Powering Peace project, a new effort to modernize peacekeeping with new energy sources that are more affordable, mitigate climate change, and build local economic sustainability.