Translator: soheila Jafari Reviewer: Ivana Korom
Today we hear a lot about the term security.
Nuclear security.
Securing ourselves against the threat of terrorism.
Projecting military force, in order to achieve security – or so we think.
But what makes us feel secure?
What makes you feel secure?
What keeps us from harm?
Today I’d like to talk about an idea called Human Security.
Given the extent and nature and pattern of the threats
that we really face on this planet,
if you believe what climate science tells you,
if you believe what we read in terms of the damage
that we are doing to our planet,
there is a real role for us to be considering other forms of security.
Ultimate forms of security.
Now this idea – Human Security – it’s not mine.
It was popularized about twenty years ago
by the UN Development Programme.
But it is something which I hope will be able
to infuse you with a new sense of how we ought to be treating
the concept of security when we hear about it on television
or any of the other news feeds that come to us
and you hear that word security, security.
So let’s unpack it a little bit,
let’s talk about how this concept of security differs
somewhat from traditional forms of security -
which tend to emphasize the state,
the institutions of the state,
alliances, borders, territory, weapons.
Leave that to one side and go beyond that,
to where human security focuses:
the individual – the well-being of the individual.
Whether a person has a job to live in dignity.
Whether a person can access food that’s cheap enough,
that’s accessible, that’s good quality.
Can the person access a glass of water?
Is there health in that person’s life?
These are all elements of human security.
Education – especially for girls –
to give them choice and voice
and thereby assure their own security.
But most of all ensuring that we have a safe habitat in which to live.
A safe environment – where our future generations can live
and move comfortably and safely.
We have tried on this planet,
the community of nations to look for goals.
The last time that we had a really big effort
to make that connection between
where we came from and security
was when the United Nations was founded about 70 years ago.
At that time, rising from the smouldering ashes of the Second World War –
we as a community of nations –
set for ourselves a goal that had four elements.
They are right there in the preamble to the Charter, you can read them.
They still inspire me to work with the United Nations.
Peace, Human Rights, Justice and Development.
All still relevant, especially when you see what you see
when you watch the news today.
But if we could go back and add another one – a fifth –
I’d suggest that we add securing our home on this planet.
Making our environment safe, because without that,
pretty much all of those other four goals become
somewhat diminished and perhaps less relevant,
and if you believe that,
then maybe we should start talking about
the environment as an issue that related to security to hard core security,
not one of the soft green luxury items on the national agenda –
a hard core security issue.
That’s what I believe.
And I came to this realization over a period of years.
I had a tipping point of my own, more like a tipping phase.
For when I joined the UN back in 1987
I had a view of security that was more traditionally cast.
It looked at what I described earlier,
and conscious of the need for us to do something
to protect ourselves from what had happened before,
I joined up.
I became a drug control officer for the United Nations
and I spent many, many years in countries
in Africa and Asia predominately.
And during those years
I was focusing largely on variations on one issue.
One issue.
Slavery.
Slavery of people to chemicals and addiction and the damage
and destruction that that causes in people’s lives.
And slavery of people to other people,
through human trafficking –
– which was another area of work that we dealt with.
I saw some pretty horrifying things and tried to make a contribution.
But as all that was happening I started to wonder
whether was in fact in some cases – not all, but some –
working with colleagues to deal with a symptom of a problem
rather than the problem itself.
Why would I think that?
I say this because when you consider what drives people to extremes,
what drives people to get up and move and migrate
and become vulnerable,
those are the forces that allow others to take advantage of them,
to convince them to become drug carriers.
To convince them that they should migrate and come crashing
into the lives of other people, causing other problems.
Some of the other drivers that I observed –
in various places on the planet –
where over population – the pressure of population –
driving people to shanty towns,
poor resource management, driving people away from areas
that they had lived in habitually for centuries to find new homes,
but in doing so, entering other people's comfort zones, creating tension
and creating pressure and the possibility of conflict.
So I saw all these connections and I started to think maybe
I should be looking at other dimensions.
And that’s when I took my new job and I look around
within the country that I’m privilege to serve in,
and I see some of those dimensions here as well as other parts of the Middle East.
I see those dimensions in the face of a gentleman like this one.
This gentleman’s name is Hossein Keikha
and he is a resident of Sistan va Baluchestan,
in the southeast part of Iran
which is essentially a desert area
on the border between Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
But get this.
Hossein is a fisherman.
He is a fisherman in the wetlands, called the Hamouns.
These wetlands have been there for centuries.
They have allowed Hossein and others like him,
his family, relatives, and friends,
to carry out a sustainable livelihood.
But Hossein has a problem with security.
He has a problem with human security.
He cannot feed his family.
Why can he not feed his family?
For years he was operating in an environment like this one –
where there is bountiful water, there are fish,
there is a way of bringing life to people.
But that is no longer the case,
because upstream in Afghanistan and part of Iran –
which still feeds the Hamouns –
the water has been siphoned off for agriculture.
This is what Hossein faces now.
What you see on the screen is a barren desert area
with a lot of dead fish –
fish that could have fed Hossein’s family.
I was driving there about three months ago.
As we were going 30-40 kilometres into what used to be wetlands,
the vehicle was kicking up dust in all of that the car
so there was a massive cloud of dust as we were driving.
That is what made Hossein cry when I saw him a year ago.
That is the cause and root cause of his human insecurity.
Let me take you up into the sky where the satellites roam
and give you an impression of the extent of his vulnerability.
Image on the left is a shot of the Hamouns – the blue area you see.
The red is the border and you see the country's name.
Iran on the left. Afghanistan on the right.
This is what it looks like today.
Water is gone.
So a guy like Hossein Keikha has to figure out
what is he going to do.
He cannot support his family.
He gets a subvention from the government.
But it’s not enough.
He has to now consider moving his family
and when he does so, he becomes vulnerable.
They becomes vulnerable.
And this is happening in many parts of the country and the region.
And indeed the world.
Let me take you now to another part of the country.
That’s where we were just talking about.
The Hamouns.
Let me take you to the northwest part of Iran where Lake Urmia sits.
Lake Urmia, once was the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East,
sits in a bowl fed by rivers,
salt water in the middle.
What happens to this type of beautiful scenery
when the water stops entering the lake
because of farming?
Twice as much farming now as it was twenty years ago.
But the type of plants that are being used for farming
require six times as much water.
Eventually the water runs out.
I took that photograph about a year ago.
Waves used to crash against the jetty that you see on screen.
When I was there, the wind whipped up
and I tasted salt, as do all the citizens around that lake.
What is their future going to be like?
Are they going to consider migrating?
Human insecurity.
As I said, this you can find in the Middle East
where climate science predicts
that we’re going to see a hotter drier future.
Hotter drier future.
How will we adapt?
I could talk about many other types of threats we face,
on this planet: desertification, deforestation,
loss of plants and animals,
loss of the ocean, sea level rise.
I come from a small island in the Caribbean, called Barbados.
And my family pretty much all live there,
we have a heritage, a culture
and we have a thought for future generations.
What will their future be like
when a rise in sea level creates storm surge that batters the coast
where all of our economic infrastructure lies?
And sea pitch into the sweet water aquifers
contaminates the only source of water we have.
The island is 20 kilometers by 30 kilometers.
It’s a tiny place. Where will we go?
So, question is, for all of us here,
what about our comfort zone?
Are we at risk of this level of human insecurity?
So I’d like to suggest that there are two takeaways
from what I’m sharing with you, in all humility today.
The first is, we need to get moving and fix this problem.
And the second is that, in order to fix it perhaps the best thing
that we can do is change our mindset.
Now looking at this,
I’d like to take you up into the sky again,
to focus on the extent of the nature of the problem.
We have Lake Urmia in black
and that’s what it looks like today.
90 percent of the water has gone.
So we are in a fix.
However, there are solutions.
There are solutions, right here for Lake Urmia.
What’s happening?
On the ground in this country,
a number of partners are joining to fix the problem
and to fix it, what we do is
we try to work with farmers, the government is working,
the provincial government surrounding the basin are working,
the UN is there,
as well are a far-sighted donor from afar
which is seeing that environmental problems do not stop at borders.
And they want to help too. What we are doing?
We are working with the farmers to make the water use more efficient.
Thereby, releasing some water to flow back into the lake.
Thereby over time, hopefully, filling it back up.
So the question then becomes for us, what do we do?
What do each of us do?
There are going to be architects and engineers in this hall.
How can you contribute to making a future greener?
There are going to be politicians looking at this form afar.
Will you be able to negotiate
among all those competing interests to make a right choice
and a correct decision about the allocation of resources
to make the future greener?
Same thing goes for those world leaders
that will be meeting later this year
in New York and Paris to chart a course
for future Sustainable Development Goals and a secure environment.
Businessmen, women are your operations green?
Can you be contributing to a low-carbon economy?
Can you find a way to make
less of a footprint on this environment?
You and me.
Reduce, recycle, reuse. Plant trees.
Talk to your kids over the kitchen table about what’s going on on our planet.
These are the things that I believe are necessary
from each and every one of us.
When I was younger,
I had a different way of looking at security.
But now, passage of time,
seeing some of things I’ve seen,
and the real drivers of the symptoms we are trying to tackle,
we need to get this together, folks.
The extent and nature and pattern of the threat is too extreme.
We may think that we are masters of this planet
but I think in reality we have become the terror of the eco-system.
And in order to change that,
let's mount a great heroic quest
to change things and to focus on a real security issue,
which if we don’t get right,
may threaten our civilization into the 21 century.
And in that great heroic quest,
all are welcome.
All hands count.
(Applause)