Journal article published by the Royal United Services Institute, March 2025.
As climate change rapidly evolves from a slow-burning crisis into a multifaceted security threat, traditional environmental approaches may no longer suffice. This journal article explores how decades of counterterrorism expertise offer a valuable framework for strengthening climate security strategies. It calls for a trade in tradecraft—applying the hard-earned lessons of counterterrorism to the emerging domain of climate resilience.
Reframing Climate Change as a Security Threat:
Rather than viewing climate change solely as an environmental issue, the article urges to treat it as a destabilising force that can amplify existing security risks. Resource scarcity, population displacement, and institutional fragility are just a few climate-induced conditions that can trigger violence, civil unrest, and even radicalisation—threats familiar to those in counterterrorism circles.
By shifting focus to the consequences of climate change, rather than the phenomenon itself, policymakers can better anticipate where environmental stress may give rise to conflict or state failure.
The Power of Anticipation and Early Detection:
A central lesson from counterterrorism is the importance of anticipatory threat analysis—spotting weak signals before they evolve into full-blown crises. Climate security, too, requires early warning systems and predictive modelling that go beyond climate science alone.
- Monitor localised indicators of instability.
- Combine quantitative data with intuitive, experience-driven judgment.
- Focus on indirect and compounding effects rather than linear causality.
The key is not just collecting data, but interpreting it through a lens that understands how fragile systems react under pressure.
Strategic Imagination: Preparing for the Unthinkable
Just as counterterrorism relies on imaginative scenario planning to prevent low-probability but high-impact events, climate security must institutionalise strategic foresight. The article argues that planning for uncomfortable, even seemingly far-fetched outcomes is crucial.
Scenario-based exercises can:
- Reveal blind spots in current policy frameworks.
- Encourage adaptive planning across institutions.
- Break inertia in long-term risk mitigation.
Breaking Down Silos: Climate as a Multidisciplinary Challenge
Effective counterterrorism has long depended on cross-disciplinary collaboration—from intelligence analysts to anthropologists. The same principle must apply to climate security.
- Integrate environmental scientists into national security discussions.
- Equip security personnel with climate literacy.
- Encourage interagency and international cooperation across environment, defence, and diplomacy.
Responding to climate threats requires institutional agility and a blending of knowledge systems—not isolated, linear approaches.
Clearer Communication, Better Action:
A further lesson comes from counterterrorism’s evolving communication strategy. Overly dramatic or vague messaging can paralyse action. Similarly, climate discourse must avoid abstract fatalism and focus on precise, actionable, and audience-specific communication. The objective: create public and political will without inducing helplessness.
At its core, this convergence of counterterrorism and climate security highlights a shared moral imperative: the responsibility to protect human life, dignity, and future stability. Climate threats disproportionately impact the most vulnerable, making early, inclusive, and justice-oriented responses not just strategic—but essential.
This text is based on extracts from a journal article written by Timothy Clack and Suzanne Raine, March 2025. The complete article can be found here.
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