Ready for Take-off? Military Responses to Climate Change
Publisher: Planetary Security Initiative and Clingendael Institute
Author(s): Louise van Schaik, Dick Zandee, Tobias von Lossow, Brigitte Dekker, Zola van der Maas, and Ahmad Halima
Date: 2020
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Prevention, Cooperation, Disasters, Peace and Security Operations
Countries: Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Jordan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States
The military is only just becoming aware of the scale of the social and environmental impacts that climate change will have in the coming decades. Increasing droughts, floods and severe weather events threaten large numbers of the world population. They lead to mass migration flows, cause resource scarcity and disrupt societies. Climate change is a risk multiplier of an existential nature, affecting every society around the world, generating new conflicts and potentially affecting our global security. This makes climate change an issue for national and international security – and thus the military. This report illustrates the fact that oftentimes climate change not only acts as a threat multiplier in theatres of military operations, but also has direct implications for military capabilities, as it leads to calls for assistance to civil society in home territories. In some cases, it can even directly affect military capabilities and strength, as extreme weather events place a substantial additional burden on military forces’ overall capacity to act and dilute the value of military assets, as exemplified by the regular flooding of the Norfolk navy bases and the recent wildfires in south-east Australia.