FIIA Climate Briefing: Climate security in wartime Europe: What can be done?

Janani Vivekananda is Head of Programme Climate Diplomacy and Security at adelphi, where she specialises in climate change and peacebuilding. Working as a field researcher, practitioner and policy advisor on climate change, peace and security across different geographic regions for over 18 years, she has published widely on this topic, in academia, including Nature, and in global media outlets, such as the Economist, the Guardian, Liberation, der Spiegel, Euronews and BBC World Service. Her work to-date involves designing and conducting participatory and inclusive programming on climate-related security risks and responses, promoting risk informed responses, and increasing the capacity of governments and civil society to integrate climate and conflict risk into policies and field projects.

Before joining adelphi, Vivekananda was the Head of the Environment, Climate Change and Security at International Alert. Prior to this, she held advisory positions at Plan International, and UNDP. Vivekananda holds a master’s in Violence, Conflict and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University. She is also a Senior Fellow at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research.

Emma Hakala is a Leading Researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Her research focuses on environmental security and the geopolitics of climate change, such as the role of international actors in building climate security practices. She leads the project “Climate change and Finland’s security of supply” and a part on conflict analysis in the project “Water Cooperation and Peace – Finnish Water Way”, which FIIA implements as a partner of the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).

Hakala gained her D.Soc.Sci degree in political history at the University of Helsinki in 2019. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the securitisation of the environment and the role of international organisations in post-conflict Western Balkans. Hakala has previously obtained a Master’s degree in political history at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Hakala is also currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the project “Toxic Crimes: Legal Activism against Wartime Environmental Destruction” at the University of Helsinki and a member of the multidisciplinary BIOS Research Unit.