The Green Policy Center held the results presentation conference of its Climate Change and Security in Hungary project at the Zrínyi Miklós Hall of the Ludovika University of Public Service on 28 February. The aim of the multi-faceted project was to assess the impacts of climate change in Hungary that pose potential security risks and to make policy recommendations to avoid these challenges becoming security problems.
The university not only hosted the project events, but its advisory board also includes two of its experts (Tamás Pálvölgyi, Deputy Dean for International and Strategic Studies, Faculty of Water Sciences, Péter Tálas, Senior Research Fellow, John Lukacs Institute, Eötvös József Research Centre) and several university staff members as authors of the studies produced under the programme. At the conference, the authors of the summary studies for the project presented their findings in the seven major areas covered by the project. On the other hand, the authors and the invited experts discussed in panel discussions some of the key issues in the broader areas of human challenges, natural challenges and economic challenges.
The conference was opened by Gábor Kemény, Deputy Rector for Development of the Ludovika University of Public Service, who highlighted the importance of the topic and further contributed to the event with questions throughout.
The opening lecture was given by Zita Konkolyné Bihari, Head of the Climate Research Department of HungaroMet Hungarian Meteorological Service Ltd., in which she presented the most important phenomena of climate change (e.g. warming, changes in rainfall and wind conditions) and the methods of their meteorological investigation.
Anna Páldy, Special Advisor at the National Centre for Public Health and Pharmacy, presented on health security, in particular the dangers and consequences of heat waves. Zoltán Lakner, Head of the Department of Agricultural and Food Economics at the Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences, summarised the issues of food safety and the security policy context. The third lecture of the session was given by Valéria Horváth, Assistant Professor at the Department of International Law, Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Ludovika University of Public Service, on climate migration. This was also the main topic of the panel discussion, in which the speakers were joined by István Pokorádi, Head of Unit of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy and Enlargement Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Zoltán Hautzinger, R.C., Head of Department, Deputy Dean of Education of the Faculty of Law Enforcement.
Boglárka O. Lakatos, a doctorate student of the Ludovika University of Public Service, School of Military Engineering, presented the most important security policy challenges of climate change in relation to water security, while László Teknős, Major General, Adjunct Professor of the Department of Disaster Management Operations of the Ludovika University of Public Service Institute of Disaster Management, presented the security policy aspects of natural disasters caused by climate change. In addition to the speakers, László Balatonyi, Head of Department of the National Water Directorate General, and Gábor Jakab, Director of Climate Policy at the Hétfa Research Institute and Analysis Centre, participated in the panel discussion of the session.
Péter Tálas, Associate Professor at the John Lukacs Institute of the Ludovika University of Public Service, assessed the security policy relevance of the impacts of climate change on the energy sector. László Teknős and Zoltán Horváth, Major General (Ret.), PhD student at the aforementioned School of Military Engineering, gave a presentation on the economic impacts of climate change. In the panel discussion of the session, one of the main issues of which was the problem of decarbonisation, the speakers were joined by Daniella Deli, State Secretary for Climate Policy of the Ministry of Energy, and John Szabó, Research Fellow at the Institute of World Economy of the ELTE KRTK.
At the end of the conference, members of the project's advisory board Péter Tálas, Tamás Pálvölgyi and András Huszár, co-founder and director of the Green Policy Center, and Tibor Schaffhauser, co-founder and senior climate policy advisor of the Green Policy Center, project coordinator, thanked the authors and the speakers for their work and the support of the university. It was announced that a book summarizing the results of the project will be published soon and will be available.
Text by Péter Tálas
Photo by Dénes Szilágyi