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Marrakech – Morocco called on the African Union Peace and Security Council (PSC) on Monday to integrate climate change into national security and counter-terrorism strategies across the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin.
The Moroccan delegation made the appeal during the PSC’s 1344th session, the first dedicated specifically to examining the impact of climate change on the crisis in these two regions. The session was chaired by Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the AU, Nasir Aminu.
Morocco urged the AU to fully embed the climate-peace-security nexus into the bloc’s new strategy for the Sahel. The delegation pointed to the Lake Chad Basin Commission’s revised Regional Strategy for Stabilization, Recovery, and Resilience (RS SRR 2.0) as a model. That framework includes environmental sustainability as its sixth pillar of intervention against Boko Haram.
The delegation also called for accelerating the finalization of the Common African Position on the link between climate, peace, and security. It commended the Sahel Climate Commission for its leadership in responding to climate challenges in the region.
Morocco stressed that Africa bears a minimal share of global greenhouse gas emissions yet remains one of the hardest-hit continents. The delegation cited disrupted weather patterns, rising sea levels, and degraded marine and agricultural ecosystems as direct consequences.
These dynamics, it said, produce food insecurity, rising unemployment tied to weakened farming and pastoral sectors, the spread of disease, and mass displacement.
“Environmental degradation acts as a multiplier of conflict risks,” the delegation affirmed, underlining the need for an integrated approach linking climate, peace, security and development. It referenced the AU’s Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy (2022-2032) as the guiding framework.
The Moroccan delegation also recalled the PSC’s 1263rd session, in which the Council called for integrating climate issues into peace and development policies.
That session urged advancing studies on the climate-conflict link, consolidating the Common African Position, and building inclusive strategies that fully integrate women and youth. It also called for increased support through climate finance, technology transfer, and capacity building.
Climate does not cause war; it makes it easier
The session takes place as the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin face mounting ecological pressures and deepening security turmoil. Temperatures in the Sahel are rising about 1.5 times faster than the global average, with projections indicating an increase of at least 2°C by 2040.
Across the region, desertification interacts with ethnic and economic tensions, worsening violence between pastoral and farming groups competing over degraded land and water resources.
Food insecurity across the Sahel has reached alarming levels. In 2023 alone, about 45,000 people suffered catastrophic hunger in the region, including 42,000 in Burkina Faso and 2,500 in Mali. The region now counts 8 million internally displaced persons, with urban areas struggling under the weight of overburdened infrastructure.
The crisis in the Lake Chad Basin illustrates the complexity of the climate-security link. The lake’s surface area shrank from 25,000 km² in the early 1960s to roughly 1,300 km² by the 1980s – a decline of nearly 90%. It now fluctuates between 8,000 and 14,000 km² depending on rainfall.
Communities around the lake have historically adapted to cyclical flooding. But more frequent and intense weather events, combined with rapid population growth and ongoing armed conflict, have overwhelmed those adaptive capacities.
Armed groups across both regions have proven adept at exploiting the conditions created by climate stress and weak governance. Extremist organizations embed themselves in local economies, recruiting from populations hit by livelihood loss and state neglect.
Recent fieldwork in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria found that poorly designed climate mitigation efforts can themselves intensify pre-existing tensions in fragile communities.
The PSC has consistently framed climate change not as a direct cause of conflict but as a threat multiplier. It deepens poverty, drives displacement, and erodes governance – conditions that sustain and intensify violence.
Mobility, once a traditional coping mechanism, has itself become a source of tension when poorly managed, fuelling clashes between farmers and herders in resource-scarce border zones.
The session was expected to produce a statement expressing concern over the deteriorating security situation, particularly in Mali.
The PSC was also expected to call for integrating climate indicators into early warning systems, enhancing transboundary cooperation, and strengthening governance to prevent climate pressures from escalating into conflict.
It was further expected to stress the need for equitable access to climate finance, including the operationalization of the AU’s Special Fund for Climate Change.
The climate-peace-security agenda has been a standing item on the PSC’s program since its 585th session in March 2016. The council committed then to annual deliberations on the interplay between climate change and security.
That engagement has since intensified. The PSC now holds two sessions per year on the theme, with over 18 sessions to date. Monday’s session, however, marked a first. It was the council’s first dedicated engagement focused specifically on the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin.
