On January 25, 2019, His Excellency Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, addressed the Security Council at its Open Debate on the impacts of climate related disasters on international peace and security. In his statement, Minister Szijjártó underlined the importance of addressing climate related disasters and the related security challenges such as migration. The Minister called upon the international community to focus their efforts on tackling the root causes in the affected countries to reduce the losses from these catastrophic events.
The Security Council, under the Presidency of the Dominican Republic, held its Open Debate on the impacts of climate related disasters on international peace and security, on January 25, 2019. The meeting focused on climate change as one of the most urgent challenges to the maintenance of international peace and security, and the need to continue to address climate-fragility risks in a sustained way.
His Excellency Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary described climate change as one of the greatest challenges of our time causing serious security risks generating additional massive flows of migration. Water scarcity, increasing level of the oceans, desertification, decreasing productivity of agricultural lands and demographic boom of certain regions are all among the negative effects of the rising global temperatures. According to forecasts 200 million people will hit the road to emigrate from their homeland due to environmental reason by 2050.
Minister Szijjártó stressed that migration is causing serious security concerns in Europe for the countries of origin, transit and destination at the same time. The international community should focus on tackling the root causes of the crises all around the World, instead of fostering migration.
The Minister reaffirmed that Hungary remains committed to keep migration policy in national competence and stressed the importance of border control and security of its citizens. The UN and the Member States need to put special emphasis on political, security, economic and environmental measures to support the states and regions in need of assistance to recover from climate related disasters.
On the margin of the UNSC Open Debate Minister Szijjártó conducted bilateral meetings with Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kuwait; Didier Reynders, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence of Belgium; Retno Lestari Priansari Marsuidi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Indonesia; Lord Tariq Mahmood Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the United Nations and Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
