Climate change is a national security threat to Europe. It is an accelerator of conflict and requires European forces to adapt accordingly. Concurrently, armed forces can help mitigate climate change by reducing their greenhouse-gas emissions. For states that plan to reduce carbon emissions, decarbonisation of armed forces without disarming will be a challenge. This new report assesses not only the implications for European armed forces of operating in climate changed worlds, but also the opportunities for reducing carbon footprint from new technologies. It assesses the challenges of implementing the necessary changes to military operations, training and capability and identifies success factors for this essential transformation.
Climate change is an accelerator and multiplier of disasters, instability and conflict, requiring European forces to adapt to operations in a changing climate. The increasing risks from climate change mean that it is shifting from being solely a human security threat to a national security threat, both to Europe and to its strategic interests. But it also raises the question of how armed forces and defence organisations can help to mitigate climate change by reducing their greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions and contribute to national and international decarbonisation targets.
GHG emissions from Europe over the last 300 years have made a major contribution to climate change so there is an ethical imperative for Europe to assist other countries in countering the impacts of increasingly frequent extreme weather events and to reduce European emissions. Moreover, European militaries are themselves directly threatened by the proliferation of extreme weather events, both within Europe and around the globe.
Read full report by Ben Barry, Shiloh Fetzek and Caroline Emmett of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).