The Irish Times view on the UN and climate change: yet again, Moscow says no

For months Ireland and Niger led efforts to win support for a United Nations Security Council resolution that for the first time would have defined climate change as a threat to peace. Its adoption would have been a small but important step, putting the climate crisis at the heart of the work of the UN's most powerful forum. And it enjoyed wide support. Yet when it came to a vote at the council on Monday, only two states – Russia and India – voted against. As one of the council's five permanent members, Russia has a veto, so the resolution fell.

The text touched on one of the themes of Ireland's term on the security council: the link between conflict and global warming. For its co-sponsor Niger, which also occupies one of the rotating seats, the issue went much closer to home. The violence and instability of recent years in the Sahel region are rooted in competition for water, food and farmland. All three are scarce because of droughts and desertification aggravated by climate change. Today, that connection between climate and conflicts is widely acknowledged around the world.

But Russia's veto had less to do with its views on the climate crisis and everything to do with the Putin regime's paranoia. Ever since a resolution on military intervention in Libya in 2011, which Russia did not block but felt was exploited by the west, Putin has vetoed anything that might in his view make it easier to justify international involvement in armed conflicts around the world. In his opinion, the climate resolution was a pretext for western meddling in other countries' affairs. The irony of such sovereigntist concerns will not be lost on Ukraine, which is currently watching Russian troops amassing at its eastern border.

The failure of the resolution does not make the link between climate change and conflict any less real. But it does make it more difficult for the UN to give the issue the attention it warrants. And it highlights once again how, for the five permanent members, the anachronistic structure of the security council is little more than a licence for narrow-minded obstructionism.