Defense ministries regularly frame climate security in their national security strategies. Recently, “civil” ministries also begun mentioning climate security. However, they do not mean the same thing. This article develops four indicators to assess the commitment of climate security framings to an understanding of climate security as either human/environmental or national security issue. It applies the indicators to fifty submissions of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) by civil ministries and seventy defense publications.

The following is an excerpt of the original article authored by Marcus King and Emily Hardy. 

This briefer highlights the core elements of water weaponization and assess its practice in the Russia-Ukraine war to date. 

Water Weaponization and the Russia-Ukraine War

On 15-17 December 2022, the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) and the Planetary Security Initiative (PSI) convened a Regional Workshop on Climate Security in the Bay of Bengal, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The track 1.5 workshop bookended IPCS’ 2022 activities in a multi-year project with the Clingendael Institute on the security implications of climate change in Southern Asia.

Recent gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean have transformed the region’s energy market and economic relationships, raising hopes for geopolitical change as well. The U.S. pioneered what it called “gas diplomacy”, aspiring to use the region’s new energy wealth to bring its countries in conflict to the negotiating table. Israel and Egypt, the new finds’ main beneficiaries, co-founded a regional gas forum.

Adapting to survive remains the only option for millions of Somalis as their country is on the precipice of yet another famine, the third in three decades. This Alert examines how the adverse effects of climate change combined with weak governance and spiralling insecurity have left hundreds of thousands of Somalis food insecure, with women and girls paying the highest price.

For humanitarian actors, the compounding impacts of environmental degradation and climate change on all aspects of human security are starkly visible in the needs of the populations they serve. In the Near and Middle East, the consequences of armed conflict are exacerbating these impacts, with severe repercussions on health, safety and well-being. As climate change intensifies, its impacts will also intensify, which, in turn, will further exacerbate humanitarian needs.

The new summary report on ‘Climate Security Scenarios in the Balkans’ examines climate security futures for the Western Balkans region and identifies entry points for anticipatory action on climate resilience for NATO and the EU. The findings of the paper are based on an interactive scenario exercise held at the Berlin Climate and Security Conference 2022.

Sierra Leone is facing a range of climate and environmental risks that directly affect human security. Human activities, including environmental crime, are further undermining protective ecosystem services and destroying carbon sinks, contributing to the cycle of degradation and accelerating the effects of climate change.

This SIPRI Policy Report compares responses to climate-related security risks by the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)—the three main intergovernmental regional organizations involved in addressing security in Europe and beyond. All three have formulated ambitious policies in the area of climate security in recent years.

Latin America is experiencing a confluence of insecurity and migration challenges that are increasingly intertwined with climate change. High levels of ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic inequality are ubiquitous, and populism and authoritarianism are gaining traction. In the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, in particular, chronic conflict, violence, and weak governance are key constructs undermining human security.