Arable land is retreating across the Sahel and water points are growing scarce. Competition for what remains feeds conflicts that are later described as ethnic or religious. President Macky Sall's candidacy for UN Secretary-General starts from that observation to tie climate to peace: climate disruption bears on the security of whole regions as much as on their harvests.
Climate displacement. Droughts and floods drive people off their land well before a weapon is fired. Those movements strain host areas and feed trafficking; they also offer armed groups a pool of recruits with no other prospect. Preventing these ruptures costs less than managing the crises they set off.
Africa's claim to climate justice. Africa emits a tiny share of greenhouse gases and bears a large share of the disruption. For the continent, climate justice comes down to one plain requirement: the adaptation finance that was promised must be paid, at the level of real needs, and counted only once.
The right to energy. Hundreds of millions of Africans live without reliable access to electricity. A transition that asked them to give up development, for emissions they are not responsible for, would not hold. President Macky Sall argues for a transition that starts from reality and finances access to energy in the same movement that decarbonises it.
Carrying the question to where it is decided. Although it signs no climate agreement, the Secretariat can place the subject on the agenda of peace, document the link between climate and conflict, and remind donors of the commitments they made. Its task is to do so steadily, from one summit to the next.
A climate position grounded in experience. This position on climate and security rests on twelve years as head of state and on the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022. That experience shapes the form the vision statement filed with the United Nations gives its proposals: obligations that conceive peace and security together with development.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The IPCC reports and the climate finance pledges are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net