Germany campaigned hard - and succesfully - for a seat in the UN Security Council. In these kind of campaigns deals of all sorts are part of the game. And it looks like the Germans would have promised to support the demands of some small island states that climate change should be on the SC agenda. Otherwise it is difficult to to understand the statement made by the German UN ambassador Peter Wittig:
BERLIN — Germany, which will join the UN Security Council in January, believes the body should start dealing with climate change as a potential global threat, its UN ambassador said on Monday.
Peter Wittig told an audience at a think tank in Berlin that Germany shared the view of the more than 40 island states represented at the United Nations that global warming was an urgent security issue.
"We are of the opinion that it would be worth the effort to consider strategically -- in the Security Council as well -- which effects climate change could have on the security situation in the broadest sense including defence assistance, resource assistance, the disappearance of entire island states, the rising of sea levels," he said.
"In New York this is a current, and for some countries, existential problem and we would like to take up these issues and bring them before the Security Council."
He said however that the drive to have the Security Council tackle potential disasters caused by global warming would be a "challenge" because some of the permanent members did not see it as part of the body's remit.
Read the whole piece here.
PS
The last sentence (in bold) also indicates that the Germans actually are not going to be very active on this matter. They know that "some of the permanent members" (wisely) are not going along.
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