 Good morning, I'm Sharon Burke and I am the Director of the Resource Security Program at New America. This is a great event we're going to have this morning, so we're delighted you could join us. So climate security as a concept has been around for a long time. In fact, I have a report that I just pulled off the shelf this morning from the German Advisory Council on global change from 2007. That's climate change as a security risk. So people have been thinking about this for a long time, but moving from concept to practice, the policy, the field work, the investments. That's not been quite as fast when it comes to climate security. So today the US government is starting to make up for lost time. And I wanted to pull together this group we have with us today to help set the stage for my own government. I've had multiple conversations with key actors in the Biden administration and in the executive branch, and also on in our legislature about this topic and we do plan to follow up with some smaller more focused roundtables after this great scene setting conversation today. So what you have here today are some of the top thinkers and practitioners on climate security in the world. And this is not a gift that is for us, but it does mean two things. I'm not going to go through all of the bios for these people and this is a very distinguished group so please, please look at our event page and make sure that you can see the background of these people and why you should really trust what they have to tell you they've they've come by this through a lot of hard work. I'm posting key documents from these folks so you'll be able to find some really interesting links there. And also I'm going to be heavily facilitating this conversation so that we can move through the topics we want to cover. And I've asked all of my speakers to limit their remarks to three minutes, three minutes, I know that's incredibly short. This is hard to do, but we're going to aim for that partly so we can get some cross talk and that we can get through a lot of subjects, they all have so much more to say than that. But we do hope to have follow on discussions as I said, so to our panelists I thank you all for your scholarship your work and your help with this conversation today. So I'd like to start with a lightning round so a lightning round means we're going to go around very very fast quick quick quick and get comments from people just a few seconds can. So I scoured the literature in the last couple of days for a working definition of climate security, which was a surprisingly diffuse challenge, which maybe we can all talk about some more. But just from a recent report I picked this one. Climate change is a threat multiplier, exacerbating existing risks to security. So quick quick I'm going to ask you what do you think of that does that definition work for you. I'm going to start with Janani Vivekananda with a Delphi in Berlin. Do you agree with that definition Janani. Thanks so much Sharon. Thanks for having me. Well, I don't want to get tied up in semantics with the kind of threat versus risk. I think there was a lot of value in that definition it was helpful at the time when it came out around 2007 when the main challenge was to get people to see and accept this link between each other. But we're past that now and I think understanding has evolved and so too must our language I think we really need to evolve the language to keep a pace with the need. The need now is to answer the so what question I think people are at this point policymakers are at this point of, yes we accept it, we get it. Finally, now so what what do we do about it. And I don't think this term helps us with that I think we need to go beyond this to something more action oriented something more solution oriented to tell us what to do about these risks. How to do better assessment what what's the kind of dimensions of resilience are something that actually tells us how to answer the so what question. Okay. And we'll get into that in our discussion. Louise van Sheik at the Klingendale Institute in the Hague. So does that definition work for you and it's okay to say no it doesn't I have a much richer one and I will, you know, we will post it. Yeah, yeah we just made a definition of climate security practices so on the ground action to address this agenda. But I think what the threat multiplier under does not recognize enough is that climate through its impacts on extreme weather events can also serve as a direct threat. And the other aspect of climate security which is not included is how security actors and military need also to deal with climate impacts directly for their organization and how they contribute to the causes of climate change. So that are for instance elements that that would need also to be explored in a broader climate security agenda that goes beyond the threat multiplier concept. Thank you Louise. Benedetta Bernie Alberti, who is the chief policy planning with NATO in Brussels. Do you all have a working definition yet for climate security that you're using. We're working on it and the previous two speakers are I think I've made my life substantially easier because I fundamentally agree with both points. I agree that actually that definition is being God send if you wish in terms of advancing the policy discussion but we have done so I think we are in a different stage it's a good it's a good stage to me because there is a much stronger political momentum that recognizes climate change as a global boundary, I would say, cross cross cross cross society type of threat. And I think that we need to expand a little bit the boundaries beyond just the indirect threat multiplier language. I think the discussion is going in that direction and then I would agree with Janani on the importance of actually talking about the so what and the very simple so what that we have a NATO is that, therefore, being that this is one of the defining if not the defining challenge over time every every component of society as a role to play and must play a role in adapting responding and mitigating and combating climate change so I think that second part of the definition will be helpful. Okay, good. I'm going to get Levine from Mercy Corps who's joining us very early in the morning in Portland, Oregon. Do you guys have a working definition for climate security. We have not developed our own formal working definition we've worked off of ones similar to the ones that that you just mentioned Sharon and as you know there's a variety of these these out there. I don't really have anything too much more innovative to say in to build on anything that what Janani and Luis already rightly said I think the threat multiplier language was was helpful for us in the beginning when sort of communicating this to sort of the agency wide for us, and with our partners, but it really doesn't speak to what we found doesn't speak to the direct impacts that climate change can have on security risks and, you know as an agency that focuses on implementation, it really doesn't speak much at all to about the actions that can be taken to address those risks. So, yeah, those would be the two things. Florian you've done a ton of writing on this and I'm curious in particular what you think about the threat multiplier framing but, but also if you have a working definition that that works for policy please feel free to share it. Yeah, thank you so much. I put it in the chat, at least one of the working definitions we're using was still in Florida. Excuse me just briefly to say this is Florian Cranfe who is with Cypri in Stockholm an amazing organization sorry about that for and please go ahead. No worries. Thank you so much. Great to be here. Maybe want to go into the semantic that that Janani was was referring to. I think the first of all great to see the climate security framing on focus on risk that we have been pushing for a couple of years is catching on men is I think that's the biggest change we have seen in the last couple of years and progress. Because the language we use and the way we frame it and define it is important. The threat multipliers as was said already gets everyone excited, but it doesn't tell us what to do. And if you're moving into the space where we want to do something. Certainly putting risks up front is really important because it is more inclusive. It puts human security at the center and it puts adaptation and sort of it finds the intervening spaces which are development centered instead of hard security center. Okay, and that is really important point Florian and we're going to come back to it for sure. That question about hard security versus human security. And then, let's get to Catherine Wong, who is with the United Nations in New York City. Catherine, do you all have a working definition you have so much influence over this field by virtue of where you sit, you know, just does the UN have a working definition of climate security. I think this is still a new space for many, and we're all learning and taking direction and trying to understand the lay of the land so to speak. I think the panelists have already covered a lot in terms of the threat multiplier versus the risk multiplier narrative. I would just note probably from, from our perspective, I guess, a lot of the different definitions hold true. Human security, freedom from fear and freedom from want national security is also referenced by member states including in the nationally determined contributions under the Paris climate change and its effects on peace stability and security are also a matter of international peace and security and so the definitions all have relevance, some more than others depending on context, when we're talking about direct impacts and for example if you're considering the Pacific small island developing states existential security is important and I think you know we understand that the definitions are not mutually exclusive and it's about perhaps the, you know, the operational definitions definitions which work on the ground which serve a purpose and kind of tie into the top line guidance that, you know, we might hope to be able to to distill and to provide and being able to connect to the narratives and framing as as Roy mentioned just now of our partners on the ground that we're working with and, you know, we understand fully as well that some narratives have a legacy that can be sensitive and even more so in conflict affected and fragile context and, you know, we can have that conversation with partners and get to a common understanding when we feel like we're speaking the same language. That's great and that and one of the reasons I wanted to start this way. And you know you all of you refer to this is that some of the questions I got in advance from Biden administration officials was just this question about lexicon and framing and how do we actually frame at this juncture so that's why I wanted to start this way. We also got a lot of questions from especially from the Department of Defense, you know they've gotten direction from the President, and from the Secretary of Defense to move out on a climate risk analysis and on other important steps, but actually taking those steps and what they should look at and how you actually do this. They're still trying to figure that out there's still they have a lot of questions in that space now, of course, DoD is not the only US agency involved, as everybody here knows it's that's certainly true for all the countries here. So I asked if Daniel Abraham's from the US Agency for international development could just jump in here in the beginning just to give us a short comment about how his agency is looking at climate security and climate change because they're actively trying to figure this out right now. Daniel could you just say a few words to us to get us, you know framed on the how US is looking at this. Sure, and let me let me start with a really important point that my comments don't reflect a formal USA position but but instead my observations as a triple ass fellow on how the agency is thinking about and considering climate security topics and I've been at USA for just a year and I do see a few key trends. And I think all of these observations that I'm about to make. I don't think they're specific to the agency. I think they reflect patterns for the field at large. So, first, there is definitely momentum on an interest in climate security and of course climate change more generally. And that interest goes well beyond narrowly defined climate change mitigation or adaptation programs but but includes the myriad ways that climate change filters through the agency's work and conflict mitigation and prevention is no exception to that. And there's enormous diversity in how that thinking has come come about from highly localized questions about climate change and gender based violence to the potential for environmental peace building to mitigate cross border conflicts. And these efforts in this breath of thinking underscores, not simply that there's energy, but also that there's not a generalizable model for USA or I would think any US governmental agency and how they approach climate change and security. And my second point would be that the increasingly nuanced academic research that many of the panelists referenced in regards to the threat multiplier language and I think is very well reflected in Florian's work. That's understood at the agency there's there's there's widespread appreciation that climate change is not a causal driver of conflict but a contextual threat that depends on specific climate impacts and local systems and local institutions and sort of broader political economies that affect both structural and and direct violence. I think the third point and I know Elliott will appreciate this is that there are very real barriers to effectively developing and implementing and evaluating climate security programming from a development perspective. For example, more than half of the countries where USA operates suffers from either armed conflict or some other form of widespread violence. And somewhat paradoxically, that makes it far more challenging but far more important due to the unique vulnerabilities to climate change brought about by conflict and I think my final thought is, as a field. And I will plateau that we're in and Sharon you referenced that earlier, we are understanding of climate security is more sophisticated than it has ever been, but our ability to operationalize that sophistication faces any number of barriers. And for me that raises a number of questions. Well, how do we overcome the barriers that challenge program design implementation. How do we appropriately draw out generalizable lessons that account to the different context that define climate security. And how do we consider an individual's role in the community and how that might affect the human security. These difficult questions but but want to emphasize that they're not rhetorical they are sort of central to getting work done to getting development work done that that centers on environmental security that leverages environmental peacebuilding and conflict sensitive adaptation that that considers climate changing conflict not separate but it's sort of compounding stress stressors. And I'm very excited to hear from the panel and to hear from you Sharon to on these topics, because as you mentioned I think this is really a world class group of thinkers and will have important insights on to these topics and I'll turn it back to you now. Thank you, that was a great way to get started and and while you are speaking for yourself right now I do want to point out that this is more than just an academic question Daniel because he's going to be jumping into the portfolio. So he's going to have to actually do this and answer his own questions, which was one of the reasons I thought it'd be great to have him here today and Daniel just an open offer. As we go through this conversation feel free to jump in if you have a question or a comment that you want to add. I'm not going to call on you by name, but you're you have a carte blanche to jump in anytime you want. Okay. Thank you. And thank you. Okay, so, AIDs trying to figure those things out they're actually actively working on a climate strategy that I believe is due by August. The Department of Defense is working on a climate risk analysis that is supposed to inform their strategy and all kinds of other activities there. And one good starting point is what does good look like when it comes to analysis and decision support tools. And I wanted to start by asking Johnny to to discuss with us the weathering risk project that Adelphi and the German government have engaged in with partners. Johnny can you tell us a little bit about that project, and that is a sort of risk analysis and decision support effort. Absolutely thanks so much Sharon if if I'm allowed to just share a couple of slides with you I mean it's not a bombardment I hope. Next slide thanks. Thank you. So yeah I'm delighted to have this chance to tell you a bit about weathering risk, the global climate security risk and foresight assessment. So this initiative, it came out of the seminal G seven report a new climate for peace. The main recommendations of this 2015 study which incidentally USG State Department and aid were very much involved in was the need for a global climate security risk assessment people could see that climate security risks were important important not just to climate and environment but to foreign policy to the G seven foreign ministers, but they needed to know more about what these risks look and feel like on the ground to actually be able to respond to them. Weathering risk was commissioned, it was launched under the Berlin quarter action last summer by the German Foreign Minister, and it's a multilateral and multidisciplinary affair. Here you can see some of the excellent partners that we're lucky enough to work with it's led by Adelphi and the Potsdam Institute for climate impact research. I would say that having been lucky enough to have been a co-author of the G seven study back then and now leading this work on weathering risk, it's really great to see this this kind of follow through from the initial analysis to these recommendations seeing them coming to life with such a broad raft of support this kind of burgeoning community of practice and I think that's really important so it's not just this one off flashing the pan there really is some continuity here. On the slide, thank you. So, so what what are we actually doing so that the initiative it's got three goals risk informed planning enhancing capacity for action and improving operational responses essentially our objective with this initiative is to develop something that can actually be used to change on the ground to address the risks that climates climate change is posing to peace and security to help us move from the talk to the walk. So the first step is better assessment to ensure that local national international strategies policies and just general decision making across the three days have access to unless can be better informed by evidence based analysis on climate security risks. So the first step is to seek to improve on knowledge of how climate impacts interact with conflict risks in specific contexts, and importantly what concrete actions we can actually be taking to prevent or reduce these risks. So next slide. Thank you. So the methodology has five steps. This is how we intend to go about this. So we look at climate impacts at the sub national level. We can go quite downscale there's a really good climate data available. And here we're lucky enough to have a great partnership with pick the Potsdam Institute for climate to get the best available climate impact data. Then we look at the context and this is again best done at the most granular level. And this part is qualitative. We look at how these different risks interact with different identity groups with men women, elderly disabled different religious groups, different livelihood groups, etc. In different ways, so that we can understand these relationships these power dynamics these different resilience factors, which might compound or mediate these risks. So, an intersectional approach is really fundamental to how we understand risk and thus inform the right kind of responses that are not one size fits all. And of course part of the context. So we then look at how climate interacts with these existing contextual risks using an analytical framework the framework we use builds on the best of what's already out there it's not new, but I think that's a good thing. We didn't see the need or the value of creating something new when there's so much that's really good out there that already works. So we took the best bits of what's out there and we can slice them together and I'll share this with you in a sec. The third step is about looking forward to ensure that we're not just using historical data to inform our analysis because we can see now that really the future looks so different to the past we can't. We can't be using historical data alone to help us make decisions about the future. So we'll be developing context specific scenario and foresight exercises, including some great work with Sharon to develop a game to help with this kind of forward forward learning. The fourth step is machine learning, they're bringing in a kind of a step to test the assumptions that and validate the pathways that we're identifying through this essentially very qualitative approach to kind of just check that there aren't any trends that are being missed through kind of qualitative subjective biases and then the final step and perhaps the most important one is to use this analysis to then identify appropriate responses, context specific measures to actually address these risks. And then the next slide. Thank you. So here's the analytical framework. There's a lot to go into I won't go into too much detail, but essentially we have a climate lens to look at the climate impacts that's the first circle. If you just click again. Thanks. Then we've got the peace and security lens to look at the economic social political stability as well as the existing and past drivers of insecurity. Click one more time, then the, we analyze these interactions through different kind of pathways these are prototypes and not straight jackets but they're a starting point to start to understand how these, these risks play out in specific contexts, some will be more, more important than others. And then one more click. Oh, it's not. Yeah, there we go. And finally we'll look at contextual factors shaping not just vulnerability, but also resilience to climate and conflict risks, including gender equality social inclusion, these kind of factors. So this approach, it not just looks at risk but also dimensions of resilience so that we really can use this analysis to identify the right kind of responses that answer the so what question. It's openly accessible it's scalable free to use and replicable, and we've just finalized our methodology and it will be launched later this month but I'd be really happy to share it with anyone interested in seeing it before then. And it's very early in the project but we'll be piloting it piloting this approach with our partners with Catherine colleagues UNDP and UN environment and Mali to test it out in actual kind of real world context and also testing it on kind of approaches to stress test will be first to be testing it with the food system with the world food program in Sudan to see how we can use this kind of approach to also look at kind of testing sectoral portfolios to see whether their climate security risk proof and how perhaps within these portfolios there is actually resilience building capacity as well that we can pick up through this kind of an assessment approach. So I'll leave it there. Thank you very much. Great. Nicely done and you you answered a couple of questions I had for you in the course of your comments, including who do you see as as natural users but you already have the user tests in great integrated in and Benedetta can I ask you does NATO have a climate risk analysis process or is is one underway are you working on something. Thanks Sharon and I'll try to stick to the three minutes because, because indeed we are doing quite a bit of work on this and most recently, as of March, as of March of this year we have an agreed climate and security agenda. That basically sets the direction of travel for NATO and the 30 NATO allies when it comes to to understanding the role that we should play when it comes to climate change and security so it's already a very solid I would say policy base as common strategy, I would say the building blocks of a common strategy, and we are also hoping to we are developing this further and other summit just a few weeks away in June, we're going to to to announce additional decisions that pretty much build on this initial climate change and security agenda. What do we do with the with this incredibly complex topic we're boiling down to three main areas where NATO as an organizations need to step up what it does. One is situational awareness and understanding of the risks and impact of climate change. The second area is adaptation so what do we need to do both as an organization and as our allied armed forces in order to to reconfigure to adopt to evolve to to meet the demands of a change in climate. And third, there is a mitigation. There is a mitigation set of intervention that really focus on what is the impact to what looking at our organization and our armed forces also as as having to play a role when it comes to combating and reducing greenhouse gas emissions for for three minutes. I will just focus on the first point because you asked me about the the situational awareness and I think here there is the long story short is that there is when you start to think about the the need for the awareness of climate change impacts our security then it's very clear that there's a series of there's a series of questions that we need to and we are answering one is how does climate change impact on our deployments our missions on our what need to would call our out of area, our outer area involvement. Second, how does climate change impact our rules and our deployments in the your Atlantic area. And here it's really about looking at the climate resilience of our military relations basis, identifying climate vulnerabilities and thinking about how do we boost our climate resilience in area. Then there's of course a second layer of analysis that is more region space, regional region specific context and if we can look at how climate change can contribute to exacerbate a situation of state fragility exacerbate situations of conflict so it's more about about the the strategic impact if you wish of climate change on the broader context. Then we also look at the role of climate changing the role the climate change plays on broader geopolitical dynamics and broader dynamics of geopolitical competition so that's both cross cutting is a cross cutting theme he has to do with what I would say, both our immediate neighborhood but also the broader, the broader, the broader threat assessment that we have as an alliance. And then I be for three minutes three minutes again I cannot give all the examples but what I'm trying to get at is that once, once you take this seriously and we must and we are then then analyzing and having robust situational awareness about on how climate affects security needs to be cross cutting from the operational level to the, to the tactical level so how do we equip our soldiers to withstand weather that are hotter wilder windier more unpredictable to the more strategic we reconfigure our, our understanding of conflict itself and how do we foresee the fact that our militaries and how what we use our militaries will also be affected by climate change. For example, the simple fact that more extreme and frequent weather events will require will most possibly lead to our increased frequency of natural disasters on our homelands will put increased strain on our civil preparedness system. And putting more pressure on our militaries to also step in. So there is it really the point I'm making is that it goes from the operational to the strategic at all levels. And the role that we think we can play and we're trying to play as much as possible as an alliance is that we can be and we really important platform to exchange practices to share data and to create conducting analysis that really looks not just that are individual allies, but also at the whole of the Alliance because ultimately that's really really important to our ability to fulfill our mission and that's I think a point that we're making that we're making to our military colleagues and they are very much receptive to it that unless we take this seriously and unless we really mainstream it and then adapt the way we do training the way we do exercise and it will do military planning itself. And you will not in the future be able to be as effective operationally so it's not a trade off between taking climates, there is no, it's a false trade off, the one between hard security and an understanding climate risk I would say there is no effective future proof defense strategy if it doesn't really take climate seriously, and I'll stop here. That's quite a statement. So, and I, but I think, I think it's very positive thing that NATO is taking this on and that NATO's role in understanding the risk and characterizing the risk in a way that's very tangible that can be consumed in strategy planning and policy and investments. That's where I also make my sorry my disclaiming statement that of course I'm not, I am speaking as then a data and this is, and I think that's always important, especially when you make as you say, as you say, exclusive statements. Yeah, okay. I didn't mean to scare you off I just you're very articulate so that's why we want you as Benedetta here but it's also very exciting. As a leader inside the institution what it what it suggests about the direction that NATO is taking, and, you know, as a former defense person myself, I think it's defense institutions have a very important role to play characterizing the risk, even if they're not the ones that actually carry that policy burden, it may be that it's more in civilian agencies. Catherine you've already the UN's already been invoked it's you know, weathering risk as is a decision support tool that that you will be testing. But could you just tell us, and I know that you all have so much going on and I apologize for artificially driving the conversation in certain directions and we're going to get to some of those other things. Do you has has the UN through the mini mechanism or in UNEP or in the development areas. Have you adopted any specific risk analysis or risk characterization tools to help the focus the UN efforts. Thanks, thanks so much, Sharon and I feel like as our panelists have put their disclaimer in I hope perhaps I should also put one in here as well and and just stress again that we are kind of building the plane as we are flying it so to speak. I think I think the point that Benedetta made about climate change helps I think is is a very timely point as well. And from outside in terms of analysis you know it's really about getting to the climate proofing or climate risk informing of prevention and peace building efforts, working in the opposite direction ensuring that climate change adaptation mitigation, but beyond that our working kind of nature and environment. So the common is conflict sensitive is is peace positive and absolutely I think from outside as well we also see opportunities for win win approaches here. And I think that kind of brings us back to the point that you mentioned at the very beginning, Sharon about that you know that kind of so what question, and here in terms of kind of what analysis analysis of what and for whom. There's a lot of our analysis and assessment, perhaps from the kind of climate change part of the house has has very much focused on socio economic development environmental degradation and disaster risk reduction and we know that through these mechanisms climate change has impacts on peace stability and security but our assessments don't get to get to that I think that and also analysis and assessments working in the other direction the same as well and I think that also kind of explains the rationale for the creation of the climate security mechanism back in 2018 to try to assess and address the intersectional risks that we see in the shape and form the climate climate security nexus. So it's it's UNDP working together with DPP and UNEP and more than 20 other UN entities through our community of practice and we were tasked back in 2018 by the Secretary General's Executive Committee to develop a conceptual approach and toolbox. Again, get to the these kind of missing pieces to get to the get to so called climate risk to two risks. So you work together more than 20 partners, including Florian and Janani. I think it's an example of Adelphi and Cypria and academia and other actors who have very substantive office in this space as well and so we developed any conceptual approach but also country regional case studies. A brief, a checklist of questions and data sources and a lot of this is still being rolled out as part of our fieldwork. It's being they beta tested and I think, you know, we stress here as colleagues have already the importance of analysis but we understand that, you know, the analysis alone is not only enough we want to stress the process at the same time as well the engagement of stakeholders and ownership and that timing is somehow key as well here in terms of planning cycles and being able to inform critical decision making processes and that there is often a lead process and process here as well as sensitization is needed. I think as a field actor we would also stress a practice orientation you know analysis may tell us what the problem is, but practice is also important telling us to what the solution might be and iteration, an intuitive process the feedback loop analysis working factors but practice also forming and feeding back into analysis is also key. Thank you Catherine that's great and as I say that what it was very helpful to get the description of the climate security mechanism to so for for people who may not be familiar with that. It's a coordinating body within the UN as Catherine described it so it plays a very important role. We're going to move on. Next to hear from Louise and Florian about who's actually doing climate security, what's, you know what are the best practices look like and then we'll finish up with a discussion about actual field work where we'll have Elliot and others jump in to say, what's the field work actually look like and how's it being informed, but I wanted to, but before we go to Louise and Florian to talk about who's actually doing this and what are best practices look like. Does anybody else have assessment tools or risk assessment. Methodologies that they want to put on the table I know Elliot you're going to later but so you can save it for your, your portion but anybody else have anything they want to add in here or questions for each other about risk assessment. Okay, I will say for DoD this is really, really important and I think Catherine's point about sequencing matters as well. So they're right now doing the heavy lift on the fiscal year 2023 budget and and sort of the the planning guidance that will go into that so you know for them the question about risk analysis is material right now so that's again part of the reason I have a sense of urgency about this conversation. Louise, I want to turn to you now for the best practices conversation, you just came out with a really great report on this very subject that was really interesting in its breadth could you just share with us a little bit about your report. It's a pleasure Sharon actually we consider this a great opportunity to talk about our best practices work or we don't even dare to call it best practices because the problem in this field of climate security practices is that there are so little activity going on on the ground, and we know so little of these practices that it's so difficult to justify if they're good or not good. In a way you could say oh that's a problem but you could also argue it shows a bit. Yeah, sometimes how difficult it can be, but it's also kind of inherent to peace and and security and work. So how do you prove that you have prevented the conflict or that you contributed to peace and stability. And that's why I think also that this this field climate security practices should not be judged from a climate finance perspective. How many people have you safeguarded from flood risk or how many climate smart agricultural actors have you have you improved or how many trees that you plant but, but you should kind of make plausible assumption of how this in the longer term is to stop people from joining a terrorist group or to move to regions where tensions are more are already mounting or how the distribution of natural resources is affected by climate change and by definition then also the tensions that are already existing in our herders and farmers. So, I think there are actors that realize this there are also actors that are active in the space behind the scenes. Inclusion of these discussions on natural resource distribution in mediation and dialogues. We also see more actors coming from the conflict prevention and peace building space such as mercy groups, but also think tanks like international crisis group decaf center for humanitarian dialogue. So we see a lot of, let's say, new actors entering the space, people seeing the need, but it's still challenging for a policymaker like you Daniel or in in defeat or in in in the government of Denmark that are seeing the relevance of this agenda but how do you justify to your conflict and security colleagues that a climate security intervention is worth it compared to I don't know collecting weapons, supporting rule of law, and other, let's say typically typical interventions in this space. So this is something we we try to do we try to collect that we have on our website, a whole overview of climate security practices. We're looking for more we also try to showcase each week a climate security practice so that comes more tangible for people. And we have also included a chapter in the forthcoming world climate security report of IMCCS on climate security practices to point out indeed this rule of the military and maybe creating a safe operating space or maybe addressing hard security actors in the in the other countries, you know, to stop protecting illegal logging or making an own business out of it. So, we try to look at the practice from the diplomacy defense and development perspective, and, yeah, to see if we can reflect on that, and what we can learn from that so to eventually, let's say just a file so the scaling up of these, so these efforts, I'll stop here and I'm sure that we'll come back to some more operational points later on, or maybe you have a specific question, Sharon. Well, one thing, one thing about your report that I found fascinating was the variety of actors that you profiled. I know that it was really interesting that it was, you know, the French military but then it was Molly in, I believe, development organizations. Can you just give us a sense of why you chose such a variety of actors to profile. Because we noticed in the work that we did in the past years in the planters security initiative test their similarities for instance to the work of the Red Cross in humanitarian camps, and having a military mission abroad. But these fields don't automatically talk to each other, they're not aligned. And of course we can write in think tank reports that they should be more joined up aligned coordinated should be more coherent. But it's better to showcase, let's say what these actors are doing, and then that people can see for themselves what they can learn from it what they can take from it for instance. How not to have water tanks arriving at the humanitarian refugee camps for 10 years, similarly to a military mission or. So, so that's just, you know, to point out that there is this variety in this different range of actors, and it's also not something only for the development space to act in this in this and that it can also be done my local actors grassroots NGOs philanthropic organizations that very often support very good initiatives such as a piece Middle East or even the energy for peace partners that have a kind of credit system to support renewables in the humanitarian field. And so also to point out that there's different ways of doing that, and not only the traditional big multimillion projects. Thank you, Louise that's great. I'd like to turn to floor in at this point and Florence been helpful a posting links, if you all aren't following it to some of the work they've been doing which is extremely valuable. Can you talk to us a little bit about best practices in the state of this field and what you see. Thank you so much for the opportunity and for for setting up this excellent event is really a pleasure to be here and see the interesting work going on and honestly how far we have come in the last couple of years. I want to I want to talk a little bit about two of our recent reports and I'll share them in the chat so you can later later look them up in more detail, which looks specifically at that piece operations or peace building operations in Somalia and in Mali and I will follow that up with with a few others in the coming years. Which is driven by the interest of better understanding essentially how climate related security risks are impacting the mandate of these missions right not, not what is it doing in the country but actually what does it mean for the mission very explicitly in terms of its mandate. So, how are the missions responding. And what this research and I think there's a collective research increasingly shows and you will have heard me say that before is that the human security risks of today, and we realize they are increasingly becoming hard security risks of tomorrow. And the mission is not laying within the military. Right, especially in these contexts where where it is a human security space that we need to work with and it's it's development issues and around vulnerabilities. And I think that drives at home very, very much for me was putting putting that into a number and why peace building and peace operations need to take this thing on. And looking specifically now in the in the renewed data on on UN led peace operations, both special political missions and peacekeeping operations we see that six out of the 10 biggest peace operations are located in countries highly exposed to climate It is an issue for peace operations, you cannot ignore it, it needs to be on the agenda for these operations, and it needs to be on the agenda of the Security Council which is sending these operations. And what we show in our research was really fascinated me I didn't expect that we would find something at the beginning but I didn't expect we would find impact across the mandate of all the missions. And that we've looked at right from the hard security side DDR programming recruitment efforts to operational mobility combat readiness of the peacekeeping troops right over governance issues in relation to legitimacy local power sharing to the development space, increase risk of sexual and gender based violence, and the development losses related with with with climate impacts, we see impacts across a mandate of peace operations. So what that shows us is, on the one hand, the security landscape is changing. Right. That's why the military response in itself is not adequate way anymore. The security challenges are different. And also what it tells us is that it is changing what it takes to build peace. It's really fascinating and to bring that to the to the question on best practices on this happening. This is something that's realized in the field in peace operations that is recognized in UN headquarters department of peace operations department of political and peace building and credit credit this too that is much due to the work that that Catherine and colleagues in the climate security mechanism has led over the last couple of years, we have come. You, I mean the CSM has achieved in the few years that exists already what it was set out to do raising the awareness of these issues and providing this information. That means now when we talk with missions we see SRS G's DS RS G's senior leadership, talking about climate security issues in a very informed manner. We see senior leadership in New York in the department of peace operations that tends not to talk about climate in more esoteric sense, but focuses typically on more hard security issues, starting to talk about emission reductions and questions that that a couple of years ago you would be like that's impossible. Importantly a few things we see on the ground, we see, for example in Somalia, the common country assessment and assessment that sets out what what the situation is and how the UN should operate across all these agencies. Highly put and putting climate security highly in there so it's really important to see that it is recognized and it is starting to guide interventions. The placement of an environmental security advisor in Somalia within the mission, really crucial one person doing 20 different things right it's a horror, like I love Chris but it's a horrible job right because you have so much to do that so much need. But the impact it has on increasing already now coordination, training political mediation efforts in climate security, bringing these discussions on informing the SRS G to better report to the Security Council on these issues and thereby completing the circle that we get also so better responses from from headquarters is really important. And I think. Yeah, I think I leave it at that I think that is the really excellent examples we see that also in a more implicit way, especially in Mali Mali doesn't have an environmental security advisor yet. But we see that despite people saying we don't really do climate security once you talk to them and once they get a better understanding what climate security actually is like, well, you're actually doing it. Right, there's a lot of implicit responses that are happening on the ground that are really worse looking into and seeing because as it is changing the security landscape. Obviously people working in the security landscape, get aware of it. Right, and find start to find different ways and different solutions. Thank you. Thank you Florian that was great and I think that concept of implicit responses that are already happening is great and. And also, calling out to the success of the climate security mechanism is great too because, as we all know, and as Catherine is living, it's very very small number of people that are trying to coordinate across a very very big organization and I think having you call it as successful is, is really helpful because I think other agencies that may be listening have a similar challenge, which is they have very little capacity to take on this issue but you can do a lot even with a little. I'm going to jump right to the, the next area of discussion and then let's get in some crosstalk, because for example Louise brought up something that I would like to come back to at the end which is the idea of success metrics and how do you measure whether you're doing it right or wrong. Elliot Levine let me turn to you at this point because so mercy core of course is a big global humanitarian and development and peace building conflict prevention organization that does everything from the policy and the analysis type work to the field work. And you have been taking on climate security and your colleague Emma Whitaker as as a, not just something to think about or analyze but something to do. Can you talk to us about what mercy core is trying to do and how you're trying to do it and I'm going to be off screen for just a second but I'm listening to you. So don't be distracted by that. I think it'd be very interesting for everyone here because you also did a landscape review of what was going on what what you have to tell us about what are you actually doing when it comes to climate security. Yeah, thanks Sharon and really appreciate getting the opportunity to be part of this conversation and frankly be part of it with with all the other colleagues here I mean everyone here are representing organizations and efforts that we benefited from and we've learned so much from over the past couple of years so this is just a great opportunity. So Sharon yeah as you as you mentioned, I'm coming from from mercy core, you know, a really large humanitarian and development organization, roughly like 5000 employees at any one time around the world in various countries which we're operating. So as you said yeah we come to this we come to the climate security discussion from the purpose from really the perspective of program implementation and what does that program implementation going to look like. I think it's helpful to figure out where we where we started with this our own journey as an organization really started with our work on with our work on resilience and our way of trying to integrate various types of environment social and economic shocks into the programs that we were developing and take a more concerted effort at that. After a number of years of that global initiative for us we took a look back at our work and what we realized is. While we had anticipated a wide variety and range of different types of shocks and stresses really they boiled down the two buckets climate related shocks and conflict related shocks of which of course are highly integrated and responding to one another. On one hand, we, we saw the effects of climate change creating, you know, a number of direct as well as indirect stresses that fueled conflict in the places we were working and then on the other side we were seeing that conflict and insecurity, really precluding much of the needed work in adaptation that we were trying to move forward so it's really creating barriers to the types of climate change adaptation work that we were trying to pursue. So really that that acknowledgement sparked a range of different activities including stock taking of our own programs, which led to our first approach to climate security and the elevate importantly for us, the elevation of climate security to our agencies primary strategy mechanism or our global compass which sort of points the direction of where we're going and what we see as strategic strategic efforts for us. And so since then, since that point, I would say that our work comes down into sort of two buckets of different work. The first is, and those are learning and then doing of which of course are very much interrelated in our world. From the learning part, you know, it really was it, our, our work in this front was really the acknowledgement that although we had some existing programs that address climate security dynamics. We didn't really have the tools of the knowledge to achieve the impact we wanted. And when we took a quick scan looking at what others were doing we didn't necessarily see that others had them either and we started to realize that we were working within an ecosystem that felt very new and very young despite this being a highly researched and very much not new subject, subject area for some time. So we started to work on building evidence on what works we started to develop qualitative case studies of our work in places like Ethiopia, and Uganda, in particular looking at our work on environmental peace building approaches through sort of long US four year or USAID funded programs. We were asked by fcdo at one point to do a landscape assessment of various climate security strategies being implemented by other development and humanitarian agencies. And then as, as you know well Sharon with funding from New America we we also did a as a follow up to that we did a landscape assessment of the other types of institutions like ours, looking at the types of climate security risk assessment tools that they were that they were using and either using or adapting. So we've been focusing a lot of learning but we've also been focusing a lot on on doing. And we have a range of programs right now which I guess I'll just, since I only have the three minute mark, which I may have already gone over I'll just feel free. It's okay keep going. It's all right we're going to get into a free for all now so you can keep going. Sounds good Sharon. So I'll point out to for now. The first is in Mali. It's a USAID funded program called Benny Barra. And it's really working to address livelihood insecurities brought on in part by increasing resource scarcity. And that's really the livelihood insecurity is a pathway is one of which we're seeing as a primary one that we're needing to address as an agency and that leads to climate security risks. So building on the capacity of. So we do that in a number of ways. We're building on the capacity. We're building the capacity of institutions and communities to identify to both identify but also respond to climate related to conflict related risks to different types of early warning early response actions. We're promoting climate smart agriculture and fodder systems really to in that case to reduce the reliance on natural resource related inputs, of which we know puts these communities at even higher risk. And we're promoting importantly here we're trying to as best we can to promote off farm livelihoods which are also less dependent on livelihood, less dependent on natural resources. And at the same time trying our best to address what we would consider to be the underlying causes of instability in the region, things related to governance and particularly strengthening laws around land and land ownership and management. And in DRC, another program where we're focused on really looking at a combination of approaches which starts by strengthening ecosystem services. To both promote agricultural productivity but also risk reduction. While in like in the example I mentioned earlier, a focus on climate smart agriculture and and working on land security issues. Interestingly, in DRC one of the things I think that is worth highlighting is that we're really trying to pilot approaches to incentivize community members to really look at the risks that they have now, but also take into account the risks they they could incur in the future as a result of climate change as well as a variety of other shocks, and to put in place risk reduction strategies now which may not pay off for for a number of years. This is something that we've been wanting to prioritize a lot more and we're excited that we're we're doing with these programs. And I would say for these two programs that I highlighted and for others, what we're really trying to do is we're trying to develop approaches which we would say for shorthand are striving for a systems approach, in which we mean really that they're sort of integrated multi sector multi scale strategies. These two represent some of that. I mean, I won't go into this but I would say that what's guiding our future work are sort of three principles that have kind of or three lessons learned that have kind of come out of both our research as well as our programming. And these speak to what others have said already is that we really do feel that there's a need within within agencies like ours to sort of broaden and deepen the evidence base for strategies that are addressing climate security risks and in short to really learn what's working. Well, at the same time, broaden our programmatic approaches, it may be that in other sort of with other institutions outside of sort of the NGO community that the approaches may be a bit broader but what we found when doing the fcdo landscape study is that the approaches felt very narrow very regulated to immediate environmental or natural resource management related interventions of which really didn't, which we felt sort of narrowed the overall approaches. And then the third is that we really wanted to start sort of breaking down what we saw barriers to action and in our field, primarily through the development of assessment tools specifically meant implementers like like our so I'll leave it there and can go into any more the details and the free for all that you just mentioned we're about to do. And I want to ask you a pretty pointed question which you know fair warning that's this is a question for everyone and particularly probably for Benedetta and Catherine but okay that all sounded really good but but what do you actually do I mean do you like do you go to the Elliott fly to Ethiopia and go to your country team that's doing agriculture and say here, this is climate smart agriculture. This is, here's a tool, if you tap control x, it will show you everything or is it, or as you say let's sit down and talk about this I'm going to tell you what you should be doing differently. How do you actually do this. I mean, you're asking me about a fundamental of my job. I mean, who do you task to go out and actually like, how do you actually do it. Yeah, no, it's a good question. So, for context, I'm part of a global team of technical support to all of our country and program teams. So this question really does kind of get at the heart of the way we operate regardless of its climate security or not but I think particular with this work. This is not something where we're going where we're going to see the types of change that we need to see in the way that are the way that Mercy Corps and our peers will operate by having just some sort of off the shelf assessment tool. It's not going to be through the development of some specific computer model or whatever it's going to be, it's going to be a process of ongoing capacity building and analysis together and I say that just because of like, you know, I mentioned our global guidance initiative before and if it was easy enough to just publish a bunch of guidelines and say here, read this, that that would have been great. But instead we spent 10 years not only building out our own definitions and our own, our own approaches, but really working with each country team individually through trainings and workshops and then co developing programs together in a way that really builds understanding. This is going to be, this will sometime require me to get on a plane and work with or Emma my colleague as well to get on a plane and work directly directly with country teams and other times it might be remote webinars and trainings. Emma and I are also increasingly focused on developing guidance. And sort of narrative case studies and everything so that program teams can understand how various elements of what they're already be what they're already doing frankly can be combined to really explicitly address climate security risks. And are you using subnational climate projections for for that like do you have the data that you need or is that still a work in progress. We don't always have all the data that we need to be frank about that we we do pull in, we do think it's fundamental that we're pulling in whatever climate data is available to us for that location. That is not a practice that we've we've actually seen as robust in in other actors is that we would like. For us, I mean, for us it's it's incredibly important it's the sort of cornerstone where whether we're looking at actions to address risks right now and understanding if those are actually being driven by climate change or if there's something else, as well as thinking about how our programs are are addressing future risks or not in some cases. We have, we have some kind of hot questions in the chat that I want to bring in but two things one is, I just wanted to one follow up question for for better data and then also open the floor, you all should feel free you can either wave your hands and signal or just jump in. I know that your early days and that you haven't actually launched your, it's coming in June the actual plan or strategy, but but do you have a sense of how NATO is actually going to do this, like how how it's going to get integrated into your operations or, you know, the way that you're actually conducting Alliance operations. Sure. And just to be clear, now we are in a way we are, we are building on on a series of things that we're already doing in the sense that we're not starting from scratch at all. And that's a point one of the previous speakers made that sometime now there is an enhanced awareness of what we're doing and looking at through a climate lens and a climate change lens which is something that it's for the Alliance itself it's relatively new, but it builds on a lot of work that really pre existed for example will be working for decades on improving our energy efficiency on reducing dependency on fossil fuels on working on green tech and we have since 2014 a framework from green technologies. So there is a lot that is already happening at that we're going to capitalize on the difference that we're pulling it all together. And looking at it through the lens of climate change and building political momentum to really make this a political priority so just to just but you're absolutely right that we are definitely scaling up. I mean, essentially there's not so many ways to go about it. I think my personal view. I don't want to affect and it wouldn't and it's a personal view but what you're trying to what we're trying to do if you do this well is affect change at all scale in a massive organization that of course, in general the defense and the defense sector tends to be quite set in its ways I think that's something we can say and would apply to many of our different societies and countries so how do you affect a change that in your way systemic level nature and I think you need a few different things you need to have some some accountability and a focal point in someone or some or a bureau or an office or whatever you want to call it for whose climate change and security is a priority and who will hold everybody else accountable but if you but if you only have that you risk then climate change becoming a nice add on that you slap on your policy once it's developed and I don't think we want to go that way so I think you need that. Plus you also have to have advisors experts really working embedded in the different parts of your of your government system I'm being quite big but I think more or less. You need this combination of a political accountability high level, I level momentum and some type of a clear agenda that you're working towards but then you also need to have real mainstreaming if you wish it's a word that I hate but I think it expresses that you need to have people who know what they're doing in every in every part of your organization. And if you can't have that because of course budgets are tight, then you might need some roving experts or some old steps in and out and, and then it has to be a dialogue. I think for for one thing that I think we can learn, speaking from a NATO perspective I think we can learn a lot from the way we have approached the women pieces security agenda, and how we have actually made it, not as opposed to an add on and integrated part of how we do our operational planning so that gender considerations are not addressed at the very end of the operational planning but they are addressed when we actually sit down and think about the mission the operational design the the the objectives we want to achieve and then later and then later on that same advisor that has been there, for example that's why the way we develop the need to mission in Iraq with agenda advisors in better from day one. And I think that's a good recipe if you want this not to be just an afterthought, then you have to give to give the person represents the agenda or the agenda itself a seat at the table early on so that when you set objectives define criteria and think about how to monitor, you feature it in. I'm sure there's a lot of creative ways to do it so I don't want to say it's very simple it's not at all, but at the end of the day I think we know what they're what we know that some elements of success need to be there. And then just to close because I don't want to, I know there's a lot of everybody else probably as smarter things to say to me on this one but I would just wanted to really echo the importance of the importance of trading and education and making this something that that is becomes important, not just at the high political leadership level but also in your middle management and in your office there because otherwise, you can design really great policies like those that are especially the middle management level are not convinced. You're going to run into some serious resistance and that's where the machine can strike back and really slow you down so it's worth I think taking the time I really invest also in building the climate IQ of your organization and we're certainly working on that. It's quite hard here in NATO and I think it's also easier to do because all the work, many of the panelists in this if not all of the panelists on this I've been doing for years actually helping us change the discourse to to to to be in a stage we are now where the idea that climate change is absolutely essential to secure is an important consideration when you think about security is no longer contested so that we can do a lot, building on the policy and advocacy work that has been done by many for many years. I'd like to invite everyone to jump in but one thing I want to say I think that was great climate IQ and also that in my experience, you do need champions at the top in the middle and ground up within especially very large organizations in act for something to actually move so I think that's an important piece of it for sure from my experience. And I'm just going to point out that Florian said some really similar things so what you said as far as the way that these things are working. And johnnie you've been silent for a long time so get ready to say something. Eve Namakula is feeding really interesting questions into our sidebar and, and I wanted to address one of them really quickly, and then also rich Roberts has a feeling a question that I want you all to be ready to jump in on about the diplomacy, you know, diplomacy, defense and development and how you actually make them work together, and what the role is for that and I know you've all done thinking on that so I think that would be great to hear people will talk about. But Eve, I wanted to respond directly to your question about that we all sound like we're talking about the global south in a sort of vaguely neoliberal colonial way. I wouldn't. I mean I hope that that's not the message that's come across because what you're actually seeing is people who are working really hard to help build climate security and resilience in these places because it's where there's a big need. However, I think everyone represented here, whether it's an institution or a country. We all believe that climate security starts in our own nations, and that our own policies about decarbonization about cutting greenhouse gas emissions about building resilience for our own populations. That's where climate security starts and we can't be effective at promoting climate security in the world if we aren't doing what we must at home. So just an observation to that question. Thanks for the three days and Eve has asked a couple of other really interesting questions. And I'm really glad to see panelists responding as well. But on the three days, as anybody want to jump in about, you know, the evolution of that and where you see that going. Yeah, John, please. Thanks for the great comment. Yeah, I touch on this and also just under school something Benedetta said I think analogy with like how this process with climate security needs to go the same way as gender and her analogy with the women security movement is very much in line with how I think this needs to go as well I think this approach of needing both this kind of specialized advisors embedded in the short term, as well as increasing knowledge and understanding and buying across across all departments in the long term and I think this really connects to the 3D approach because there is a lot of knowledge about different pieces of the puzzle and it is a puzzle because we don't. It is so complex and multi dimensional. I think that we do need to bring all the days, plus the other parts as well to the table to really get the big, bigger picture. I think the point I wanted to make is that there is, there are processes I think some of you were involved in a dialogue process called climate security and 3D, which brought together different actors from the three days across geographic areas and I, it was a very useful process it was also really important to see that there is knowledge so from the US perspective I think it's maybe useful to hear that you don't need to go it alone there's a lot of knowledge that's already been built up and you can piggyback on. So, there's a real value in not just connecting across your three days but also building on building this community of practices, which is essentially why you've, you've kind of convened the space to bring together those different actors across the different countries but also across the different countries to really make sure that we can connect the dots and really build on a lot of what's out there I mentioned that there's a lot of really good climate security risk analysis is really great. There's a lot of shared shared work there's lots of stuff that's been shared in the chat. So I think it's not starting from nothing. And I think there's a really, really important value in in kind of codifying this community of practice in some way so it, we don't keep having these conversations but starting from a lower baseline we can really keep building up on it on this baseline and moving forward. I'm leaning forward like you have something to say. Are you just leaning forward or do you have something to say. I have a lot to say. Thank you so much. Just a few points that I wanted to raise and I'm trying to think of which one I'm playing off now first. And now let's go to the colonial question, which I think is really important because a lot of the discourse and and work that is done in the right. And we were very fortunate to work closely together with with an organization in Kenya bringing together local civil society and local experts to not tell our story of climate security but he has their story of climate security and actually learn from that perspective and then use our voice that is a little bit louder than probably as this type of organizations and to amplify that right and showcase this different version and what we're trying very closely to do for this project with new piece that we're working on is consultations but consultations on a fair basis. It's not an extraction. It is to understand that my policy recommendations that I'm giving you make sense for your context. I can tell you a lot of things that make absolutely no sense for you, but for me to understand local governments local civil societies where they are where to pick them. And the way that they help in these contexts is really important and in the project with environmental of peace that we are we are working on a big report looking broadly at the environmental security space and peace and just transitions we're also looking closely at environmental defenders. Right, one of these local, local actors that is really crucial and really important. And there's actually also security factor in there. Just Janani mentioned we shouldn't invent new things right and keep things alive and also Elliot was mentioning the assessment and talking to a US audience and having Daniel here with the US eight link. Probably it's political reasons but why is the hack that we stop the works that Ashley Morgan and colleagues were leading on the excellent work on the intersection of fragility and climate risks, right. Really useful tool, one of the smartest things I've seen out there that actually understood what it was doing it understood the climate side and it understood the fragility side. So basically, you get one or the other, you sell them to get both together, and put some money back in that that is there is a concept is great the people are still alive and around right so this is a thing we wish that would be a very easy win to pick up and allow me then to refer to that work not from 2014 but have an updated version from 2021 right I think that would be really useful for for the space. Great and Daniel I hope you wrote that down. Catherine and then Louise I want to we're almost out of time so Catherine. Let's get to you and then Louise I'd like to hear a last comment from you. Thanks so much. Thanks so much and I think to the point that you made just now about how we can better work with an empower actors from the global south I think the, you know, the rationale for the creation for the mechanism. Somehow as a template for that. We have through our work over the last two years and trying to embed clam security experts and advise advisors within different partner entities so this includes the Tappelgorn Authority, also the League of Arab States, and then special political missions and peace operations, but through this through this means we have a mechanism to support partners right so they develop and grow that and develop their own strategies to address climate related security risk so it's not a gender imposed by us it's one that's kind of developed by them without support we're kind of reflecting their own institutional priorities and their own capacities and so forth and I think that that's really important as well and when we're talking about capacity gaps I think we are talking about gaps in every level as colleagues mentioned just now from senior to kind of intermediate to junior level and so forth and we are still a small community so there's somehow a need as well to kind of grow this community together as well and networks and partnerships and working with those who are already there and helping them kind of define their own institutional priorities for addressing climate related security risk I think would be key to think about. Thanks Catherine and I know you're playing a really important role in growing that community so appreciate getting that comment from you, Louise. Yeah, I was thinking maybe to say something positive to end off. The point that we grow this, this field of climate security practices that more will be implemented on the ground that us eight is also chipping in other actors are entering the field it doesn't need to be only development cooperation project it can also be different types of communication diplomacy, and also perhaps realize that in some cases it can also be a new entry point for peace building so climate change is a kind of relatively still new enemy that affects many many actors, and it can also be used as a kind of entry point to bring these actors around the table and talk, let them talk to each other, maybe not about ethnic divides or historic conflict reasons for a nasty business. So let's see if we can also use it let's say as a source of inspiration for new peace building efforts. I leave it at that, and I hope that that's also helpful contribution. Thank you Louise I mean I think all of your work that you're doing is a really important contribution to building a baseline that both at Clinton Dale and through the planetary security initiative you guys have been building the foundation for all of this so I really appreciate your comments. Hey Daniel, any last thoughts I mean I'll just say one thing as a former US government employee. One of the problems for us with the 3D, which is we're not it's not unique to the United States but certainly a factor for us is that we have one D that swaps the other days, and that becomes a, you know, a practical problem that we have one D that is vastly more resourced with people and money than the others. That becomes a practical challenge but Daniel you don't have to comment on that particular thing, but you have any last thoughts any any inspirations that you want to leave us with or to do lists that you have formed for yourself. Yeah you've all asked me with definitely a growing to do this which I appreciate very much. I have just a quick comment on the 3Ds is that it's somewhat informal but you know I think we know who is working on this issue and there's definitely appreciation and consideration. To the extent that organizations with overlapping I'll be at very different missions can coordinate I think we're certainly thinking about that. And I just also wanted to express appreciation for everyone's comments everyone. I took a lot of ways in this book, as someone who's currently working in the US government, one who had been an academic studying this issue. So, just want to thank everybody and thank you Sharon for putting it all together. You are welcome you and I thank you to all of our panelists this is quite an august group and I hope everybody who's joined us realizes how lucky we are to have this group of people together. And, as I said, we are planning to have some follow on what much more focused conversations. Also, I know one of our mana first mentioned that that was having trouble seeing the chat we'll try to capture certainly all the links that you shared on our event page. So that that if anybody missed, because there's some very valuable links going up in the in the chat so we'll try to get those all up on our event site and thank you all and any last shots you've got a couple of minutes if anybody wants a final comment Very, very quick and it's a point about the And of course my phone is ringing. Of course right on cue. And it's a point about the balance between the three days and, and just a point that I think it's incredibly important that that you have that with this conversations and in general in the in the ICL is this as a trend. The military and the defense sector per se is being brought into this conversations more and more. And I know that there's, there's, there's trade off there and there's always a perception that when you bring the defense or military sector in there is a risk that you're going to militarize or look at the or securitize the solution to a problem and that's certainly something that I don't think would benefit from addressing climate climate security a large and that's a point that has been made throughout the panel, but it doesn't have to be and, and I think Sherry Goodman is the one who said, Well, at least I heard it from her. This is more about a climatizing our defense sectors to really understanding the impact on security rather than securitizing the climate conversation so it's just just a note to the fact that, even if the conversations are not always natural there are just different deeds. I think they're essential, they're absolutely essential when it comes to climate change and, and, and the bringing the military in is really a good idea on this discussions and it doesn't have to mean changing the spectrum through which we address conflict which needs to be continued continue to be driven by a integrated political political approach. So just, just, that was a really important last point to make I really appreciate it and I completely agree that in the United States, not the question of militarizing climate change but rather shifting what our definition of security is, because I think we've had to narrow a definition here for a long time. And where if entered a time I think one of the questions in the chat was also about the effect of COVID on climate insecurity and that's a whole nother event. But the point is taken, I think that what makes us safe or unsafe or prosperous or not prosperous is is more than just about an armed conflict, and we in this country need to do I think, I think a better job of secure of how we define security and how we get security more to the point. Okay, we are at time. I want to thank you all very much for the conversation, and more importantly for the work that you're doing because you've all been the people that are advancing creating what this area is and advancing it so thank you very much for your time and for everyone who joined us today. Take care.