Climate change threatens UK security
By 2050 as many as 3.4 billion people will be facing catastrophic ecological threats, with the potential for 1.2 billion climate refugees. In our complex and interconnected international system, global impacts are felt locally.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate & Security was established to assist the UK to be a global leader in understanding, mitigating, and adapting to the effects of climate change on security.
The APPG, chaired by Philip Dunne MP is made up of members from across the political spectrum of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, including Caroline Lucas MP; Lord Toby Harris, Chair of the National Preparedness Commission; and Tobias Ellwood MP, Chair of the Defence Committee.
The secretariat is provided by the Climate Change & (In)Security Project (CCIP), a collaboration between the University of Oxford and the British Army’s Centre for Historical and Armed Conflict (CHACR).
The US Biden-Harris Administration prioritised a focus on climate security, tasking the National Intelligence Council with producing its first 20 year climate and security forecast. The conclusion was that “climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to US national security interests.”
The UK Ministry of Defence's Global Strategic Trends: The Future Starts Today report is heavily focused on the threat posed by “increasing environmental stress,” with a dedicated thematic overview and cross-cutting geographical specifics.
It considers “increasing disruption and cost of climate change” to be a ‘high impact – high certainty’ trend. Further, it predicts that climate change hazards will disrupt trade, reduce biodiversity, and increase migration, and “if not handled effectively” could lead to increased tension and conflict.
Building on near universal military consensus, NATO has a joint Climate Change and Security Action Plan because:
“The implications of climate change include drought, soil erosion and marine environmental degradation. These can lead to famine, floods, loss of land and livelihood, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls as well as on poor, vulnerable or marginalised populations, as well as exacerbate state fragility, fuel conflict, and lead to displacement, migration, and human mobility, creating conditions that can be exploited by state and non-state actors that threaten or challenge the Alliance”.
Three in four people across the Global North view climate change as a major threat to their country. In the UK, 84% of people are concerned about climate change – with over half supporting net-zero being brought forward. 72% believe that the effects of climate change are already being witnessed.
Climate change is impacting both natural and human systems around the world in ways that will significantly exacerbate food and water scarcity, displacement and migration, as well as humanitarian and economic challenges.
The most economically and socially vulnerable members of our communities will be the hardest hit: increased food insecurity, increased job insecurity, and increased energy insecurity, rising prices and fewer options.
A roll back of state provision as the socio-economic impacts begin to bite harder and deeper – a vicious cycle of less tax revenue, less public spending, and less opportunity for individual and collective development. The overlap with robust climate and security policy and fundamental government purpose is clear.
In the short to medium term, climate change disruptions will likely generate new geostrategic flashpoints and compounding cascade risks. In turn, these will likely result in both political and security implications, including increased inter/intra state competition and conflict.
Violence, and the threat from environmental damage that accompanies it, will spread across the world, where potentially few areas will be immune. The UK must enhance overall understanding of how climate change is shaping strategic and operational contexts, and urgently integrate climate and security considerations into relevant analyses and decision-making.
Only comprehensive policy and action, that is adequately resourced, can maintain defence and security provision in the medium to long term.
There is a need for increased climate security policy, response, and action that is genuinely cross-party (and interdepartmental), delivered at scale and pace as a matter of urgency; climate security literacy, understanding, and competence; and a commitment to net-zero initiatives and multilateral and bilateral coordination and collaboration on climate security.
Furthermore, climate security cooperation and integration across defence, development, and diplomacy, within the context of a wider a whole of system approach is central; as is domestic provision for the impacts of climate security shocks such as mass migration, agricultural failure, and economic instability; and ensuring partnerships with nations and networks on the front line of climate change insecurity.
Lieutenant General (ret.) Richard Nugee writes alongside Louise Selisny, Senior Research Associate atthe Climate Change & (In)Security Project.
Lieutenant General (ret.) Richard Nugee is a Senior Research Associate with the Climate Change & (In)Security Project and Non-Executive Member of the Defence Safety and Envrionmental Committee.
Most Popular
What to read next
