NEWSWEEK: India and Russia voted against a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have included the security dangers of climate change in its decision-making.
Twelve of the council’s 15 member nations voted in favor of the measure, while China abstained. According to the U.N.’s website, the security council’s responsibility is to take the lead “in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression.” …
Russian and Indian officials argued that climate issues should stay in designated U.N. groups like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Russia holds veto power due to its status as one of the five permanent members of the council.
Key quote from Russia:
“Positioning climate change as a threat to international security diverts the attention of the council from genuine, deep-rooted reasons of conflict in the countries on the council’s agenda,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said, adding that the resolution would turn “a scientific and economic issue into a politicized question” and give the council a pretext to intervene in virtually any country on the planet.
I’m no security council expert, but check this out — the council is arguably stacked against the countries least to blame for the climate crisis on a per-person basis — permanent members US, U.K., France arguably outgun Russia and China (CarrZee reckons it’s crazy that India is not a permanent member). See above.
See below for current members (including India and quite a few emerging countries — but crucially only five have veto and they have much more power):
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CarrZee Comment
CarrZee understands why some nations contend that the rich countries have not behaved with honor at the UNFCCC, the global UN climate-change forum where global consensus is needed.
Climate finance and ambitious emission targets from the rich have not arrived.
Going for control of the climate crisis or the response via the security council is not the right thing to do, especially when rich countries are most to blame for that crisis, the world’s biggest.
Link: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-india-veto-un-resolution-climate-related-security-dangers-1658920
Not sure Russia is regarded as Europe, but I’m including this as Africa seems underrepresented, too.