Communities around the world are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Rising temperatures, shifting weather patterns, and growing competition over natural resources are already disrupting livelihoods and heightening tensions, particularly in conflict-affected and fragile settings. Today, an estimated three billion people live in climate-vulnerability hotspots, many in areas already grappling with instability.  

To help address these challenges, UNEP and the European Union have launched the Knowledge Hub for Locally Led Action on Climate, Peace and Security – an online platform is designed to support communities, practitioners and policymakers in developing and implementing conflict-sensitive, nature-based and participatory approaches to build peace-positive climate resilience. It brings together tools, case studies and learning materials that show how locally led action can help prevent conflict, strengthen cooperation and promote climate justice. 

Locally Led Action on Climate, Peace and Security emphasizes valuing and mobilising participatory processes, and utilising Nature-based Solutions to achieve conflict-sensitive and peace-positive climate resilience. By involving communities directly, projects gain local insights, legitimacy, and greater long-term impact. Participatory processes help uncover underlying issues — such as pre-existing grievances or unrecognized resource stressors — ensuring that interventions are comprehensive and inclusive. 

Rooted in the EU–UNEP Partnership on Climate, Environment, Peace and Security, the Knowledge Hub builds on years of joint work in fragile and conflict-affected regions. Since 2017, the Partnership has supported local, national and regional actors to better understand and address the links between climate risks, environmental degradation and peace.  

A space to learn, share and act 

The Knowledge Hub brings together three main components that turn knowledge into practical, locally led action. 

• The Toolkit for Locally Led Action offers practical guidance for facilitators, project managers and communities to design and implement conflict-sensitive, nature-based solutions for adaptation. It provides adaptable tools, worksheets and participatory methods that can be applied across different contexts. 

• The EU–UNEP Partnership section highlights how the European Union and UNEP work together to help communities address climate and environmental risks that threaten peace and stability. It features regional projects, analytical tools such as the Strata geospatial platform, and examples of how evidence-based action is shaping local resilience. 

• The Resource Library brings together reports, online courses and data tools that help users understand risks, share solutions and connect with global networks. It also includes a glossary and case studies showcasing how locally led and nature-based approaches can promote peace and resilience. 

Why it matters 

Climate change and environmental degradation are increasingly shaping global peace and security dynamics. Building resilience in such contexts requires local leadership, reliable data and shared learning. The Knowledge Hub provides all three. It connects practitioners across regions, promotes evidence-based decision-making and offers practical tools that can be adapted to diverse contexts. 

As highlighted in the UN’s New Agenda for Peace (2023), tackling the climate crisis and promoting peace demand innovative, inclusive and justice-oriented solutions. The Knowledge Hub contributes to this vision by empowering local actors to take the lead and turn global policy commitments into real change on the ground, where climate action is needed the most. 

Explore Climate, Peace and Security – a knowledge hub for locally led action and discover how locally led action can drive peace-positive climate resilience. 

In an era marked by the convergence of climate change impacts, socio-economic vulnerabilities, and security risks, climate adaptation is confronted with growing strategic and operational imperatives: to act early, to target interventions effectively, and to strengthen resilience at the intersection of environmental, political, and economic fragilities. Yet fragmented data ecosystems and limited access to integrated geospatial tools continue to hinder the ability of climate practitioners and decision-makers to anticipate, prioritize, and respond to these complex and overlapping risks.

To help close this gap,the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), officially launched Strata, a web-based geospatial data platform that identifies and tracks where environmental, climate, and security stresses converge with socio-economic vulnerabilities and instability.

As climate change intensifies, its effects extend far beyond rising temperatures or extreme weather. It degrades land, disrupts food systems, and threatens livelihoods, often triggering migration, conflict, and socioeconomic instability, particularly in the most climate vulnerable nations. Security concerns linked to climate change include impacts on food, water and energy supplies, increased competition over natural resources, loss of livelihoods, climate-related disasters, and forced migration and displacement.

Strata is designed for practitioners, analysts, and policymakers who are seeking to assess and monitor where climate and environmental risks are converging with other vulnerability factors at different geographical scales to inform assessments, design and prioritize responses, and monitor impact.

Under development since 2020 under the EU-UNEP Partnership on Climate Change, Peace and Security, with financial support from the European Union, Strata was designed in response to a growing global need for integrated, accessible and open-source evidence showing how climate, environmental and socio-economic risks, including conflict and instability, converge. Strata is a “real manifestation of the Secretary-General’s 2.0 Strategy, which emphasizes putting digital transformation, data, and analytics at the forefront, while also fostering a One UN approach, free from fragmentation or redundancy,” stated Sally Radwan, UNEP’s Chief Digital Officer, at the launch event which took place on April 3, 2025.

Climate change represents a risk multiplier in the context of security because its impacts can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and conflicts. However, the evidence needed to connect the dots has not always been easy to find or understand. Yet, “when data on climate and peace is missing or inaccessible, the needs of countries go unseen and unmet, both by finance providers and the countries themselves,” said Galyna Uvarova, Programme Management Officer at UNEP.

In response, Strata offers a free and open-access mapping and data analytics platform that integrates satellite imagery, climate models, and peace and security indicators. Strata’s hotspot maps, easy-to-read area statistics and reports provide important insights for analysis and assessments, planning, prioritization and monitoring for climate action, natural resource management, conflict prevention and peacebuilding. Strata empowers policymakers and organizations to make informed decisions about where to focus their efforts to mitigate climate related security risks. Strata particularly identifies hotspot areas where environmental pressures intersect with social vulnerabilities. Ultimately, STRATA supports the Paris Agreement by providing actionable, high-resolution data that helps countries identify and prioritize climate-vulnerable areas.

Strata does not imply causality between climate and conflict factors, nor does it make predictive claims. Instead, it supports informed decision-making, rooted in real-time and historical data insights. It enables users to “explore real-time hotspot maps and generate shareable visual insights that can be applied to planning, assessments, and peacebuilding strategies,” said Silja Halle, Manager of the EU- UNEP Partnership.

During the launch, Julius Jackson, FAO’s Lead of the Conflict and Peace Unit, emphasized Strata’s strength to “clarify and simplify data for non-experts and policymakers, which strengthens and informs discussions, making our work and narrative more accessible and impactful”.

Strata builds on a “Convergence of Evidence” methodology, developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center, by integrating geospatial data from global datasets on climate and environment, peace and security stressors with socioeconomic vulnerabilities. The resulting maps classify areas into four stress categories—Low, Moderate, High, and Critical—guiding targeted interventions. Users can explore the data through customizable layers, charts, and downloads, all accessible via a user-friendly, code-free dashboard powered by Earth Map.

The platform also highlights global initiatives around nature-based solutions for peace and security to inspire decision-makers and programme managers when designing climate and environmental security interventions.

As global efforts intensify to accelerate climate action, Strata provides a data-driven platform that translate knowledge into action. By identifying where climate, environmental, and security risks converge with socioeconomic vulnerabilities, STRATA equips communities and governments with science-based data to address complex, interconnected challenges and drive targeted, effective interventions, particularly at the local level, where climate action is needed the most.

Explore Strata today at unepstrata.org and be part of the movement toward more informed, resilient futures.

To re-watch the official launch of Strata, click here.

The Help Center offers guidance for new users, including walkthroughs on how to interpret the maps and integrate them into real-world planning.