McGill University has established a partnership with UN Environment—the primary United Nations agency coordinating environmental activities and assisting developing countries with environmental policies and practices. Involving McGill’s faculties of Science, Arts and Law and housed within the Institute for the Study of International Development, the Partnership focuses on tracking and assessing environment-related risks to societies and states. The Partnership will conduct research- to-policy-to-practice work that is important to environmental security, climate vulnerability, conflict, risk, human security, and state fragility in international policy.
The Partnership operates by pairing UN Environment’s research needs with McGill researcher interests in order to pursue specific priorities for UN Environment and the broader UN community.
The broad range of risks and threats posed by environmental changes and processes to states and societies has long been recognized by the international community. In 1987, the Brundtland Commission identified several types of environmental threats, including pollution, the depletion and scarcity of natural resources and long-term processes of environmental degradation; and has recognized their potential to generate food and energy insecurity, population movements across borders, political tension, and military conflict. The McGill-UN Environment Partnership’s purpose is to contribute to the development of evidence-based policy and practice measures able to attend to these important issues.
