World in Transition: Climate Change as a Security Risk - WBGU

Action Plan ‘Crisis Prevention’
The German federal government’s action plan on
‘Civilian Crisis Prevention, Conflict Resolution and
Post-Conflict Peace Building’, adopted in May 2004,
sets out the principles and strategies of German policy
on ’crisis prevention. The Action Plan gives concrete
form to the methodological approaches applied
in crisis prevention and renders them operational.
Ways of consolidating and restructuring existing
institutions and of deploying available instruments in
a coherent way are highlighted in order to strengthen
the capacity of the government in this sphere. Crisis
prevention in this context is to be understood in its
widest sense, including conflict resolution and peace
building.
Adaptation to climate change
Adaptations in natural or human systems to actual
or expected climatic changes. Various types of adaptation
can be distinguished, including anticipatory
and reactive, private and public, autonomous and
planned.
Annex I countries
Group of countries listed in Annex I to the ’United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). It includes all OECD countries apart
from Mexico and South Korea, as well as the eastern
European states and Russia. Annex I countries
have committed under the UNFCCC to adopt a leading
role in the reduction of greenhouse gases. Moreover,
most of the Annex I countries have entered into
binding reduction commitments under the ’Kyoto
Protocol. Such countries are listed in Annex B to the
Kyoto Protocol.
Anomie
Situation in which there is minimal social order or
none at all, and in which rules and norms exert little
influence.
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
One of the flexible mechanisms introduced by the
’Kyoto Protocol, which allows an investor to carry
Glossary 12
out emissions-reducing projects in a ’developing or
’newly industrializing country and to receive tradable
certificates for this, which an industrialized country
can offset against its reduction commitments.
Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
The CFSP was established as the second pillar of the
European Union by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992.
It sets out a framework for cooperation among the
EU countries in matters of foreign and security policy.
In contrast to common trade policy and development
policy, which likewise regulate the external
relations of the EU, but form part of the first pillar,
the CFSP is an instrument of cooperation among the
Member States at government level, but has no direct
legal force.
Comprehensive security
Comprehensive security emphasizes that uncertainty,
instability and violence are not only brought about
by military aggression, but rather may have complex
political, economic, socio-cultural and ecological origins.
’Security policy viewed in this way is no longer
merely a question of military capacity, but is based
on the ability to defuse crises at the earliest possible
stage using civil and, if necessary, military instruments.
Alongside classical foreign and economic policy,
civil means increasingly include development and
environmental policy measures.
Conflict
Conflict describes disputes and disagreements of any
kind over contrary interests between individual or
collective actors. In the context of this report, conflict
is conceived of as an intensification of ’crisis.
As such, it covers (mainly) violent disputes between
two or more conflicting parties and can lead to social
’destabilization.
Conflict constellation
Causal linkages at the interface of environment and
society, whose dynamics can lead to social destabilization
or violence. A conflict constellation identifies
’key factors that determine the emergence of ’cri-