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From the melting Arctic glaciers to the growing African deserts, climate change is a reality. It threatens our prosperity and well-being, not just in Europe but beyond. Moreover, it will reshape the geopolitics of the world in which we live, with significant consequences for peace and security.

Climate change will act as a stress multiplier. It will exacerbate existing pressure on scarce resources, particularly energy, water and food - we are already seeing record spikes in global food prices and growing concern over the consequences in places like China. Competition for scarce resources threatens to fuel migration.

The impact is likely to be most acute in regions such as the Sahel, the Middle East and South and Central Asia, which are prone to instability and where people are already socially and economically vulnerable. Rising sea levels and melting ice caps also risk triggering new conflicts over shifting maritime borders.

This is not an apocalyptic scenario. It is the assessment of increasing numbers of security experts based on the findings of climate scientists. Their conclusions demand a clear and coherent foreign and security policy response.

The European Union is already leading the global effort to tackle change. In Europe, we are building the world's first competitive, energy-secure low-carbon economy. Alongside developing the world's first functioning carbon market, we committed ourselves last year to meeting ambitious targets designed to put us on a fast track to de-carbonizing the European economy - 20 percent of total energy to come from renewable sources by 2020, 12 demonstration Carbon Capture and Storage plants by 2015 and a 20 percent reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, 30 percent if other developed countries show similar ambition.

Internationally, we are pushing mitigation efforts under the Kyoto Protocol and working hard to broker a post-2012 global climate deal. We launched negotiations at the UN meeting in Bali in December. It is now imperative that we agree on an ambitious, binding, comprehensive and equitable agreement by the end of 2009 at the UN meeting in Copenhagen.

And we have put the security implications of climate change on top of theinternational agenda. In 2007, the UK initiated a debate in the UN Security Council on the impacts of climate change on peace and security. During its EU presidency in 2007, Germany initiated a report on a European response to the new security risks. European leaders discussed the report and endorsed its findings and recommendations at their Spring Council in March 2008.

Both the UK and Germany support a European response to the emerging security challenges of climate change. We want to help implement an effective European and multilateral strategy to address the new threats.

What are the important elements of such a strategy?

1. We should intensify our efforts to meet the new security risks triggered by climate change. With the European Union's strategy for Central Asia and the new EU-Africa partnership, we have groundbreaking policy frameworks that will allow us to mainstream climate security into the EU's regional policies. In Central Asia, trans-boundary water management is an important pillar within our strategy. By helping build capacity, fostering regional dialog, and setting up more efficient water infrastructure, we are promoting water as a focus of regional co-operation, rather than regional division. The same is true for Africa, where the effects of food insecurity, water shortages and extreme weather are likely to be severe. The EU-Africa Partnership gives priority to more cooperation to address land degradation and increased aridity. Promoting food security through initiatives like the "Green Wall for the Sahara" is a key element for political stability and crisis prevention in Africa.
   
   
2. We will have to address an increasing number of global natural disasters such as storms, floods and droughts in the future. There is a strong case for closer monitoring of climate-related developments in crisis-prone areas. But we also need to prepare for increased demand for European-led disaster management and humanitarian relief.
   
   
3. We need to consider now how climate change will affect the strategy context of European foreign and security policy in the years to come. For instance, the shrinking Arctic icecap could raise questions about resources, delimitation of maritime zones and sea lanes in the far north. To avoid new tensions, the EU report on climate security proposes a European Arctic policy. It is vitally important for European security to implement governance structures for the Arctic region based on international law, aiming at a cooperative and peaceful management of resources and preserving the ecological heritage of mankind.

Anticipating new foreign policy challenges and reinforcing the climate security and conflict prevention aspects of our regional strategies are important steps in defining a joint EU response. These efforts will help us to avoid growing resentment between those most responsible for climate change and those most affected by it. A potential stand-off between "polluters" - both in the North and among the emerging economies - and "victims," who will be predominantly in the South, would put the already burdened international security architecture under increasing pressure.

Ultimately, there is no hard power option for tackling the causes of the climate threat or for dealing with its direct impacts. You cannot use military force to build a low carbon global economy; no weapons system can halt the advance of a hurricane bearing down on a city or hold back the rising sea. But what the emerging analysis on climate and security tells us is that we can be sure that there will be hard power consequences if we fail to rise to the challenge.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany and David Miliband is the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. This text was first published here in The German Times.

Related materials from the Atlantic community:

• Axel Berg: High Hopes for an US-EU led International Climate Change Policy
• Frank Walter Steinmeier: Yes, We Can! Our New Transatlantic Agenda in a Changing World
• Sascha Mueller-Kraenner: After Bali: A Shift in Climate Policy Leadership