The Climate Security Agenda Is More About Strengthening Military Power than Tackling Climate Instability

May 12, 2022 | Nick Buxton, Nuria del Viso
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In the last seven years, the trends we identified in the book of promoting military and security solutions to the climate crisis have sadly become more entrenched. In 2021, NATO made military preparations for climate change one of its key priorities, President Biden is integrating military perspectives on climate change into all areas of government, and the EU is well on its way to full-scale militarisation, particularly in the wake of the war on Ukraine. 

I think the belief that climate change will necessarily lead to conflict has become hegemonic. It is a narrative that is clearly strongly promoted by both military planners and the arms industry who by nature of their political and economic power have made it feel like ‘common sense’. All the security narratives are based on the ideas of scarcity, including the ideas about conflict I mentioned before. NATO’s strategy in 2021 for example says that climate change will ‘exacerbate state fragility, fuel conflicts, 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’.

This diversion of resources to securitising the climate crisis does nothing to address its root causes or to prevent it getting worse. Rather it ends up turning its victims into ‘threats’ that must be dealt with militarily. It is an irrational and deeply inhumane way of responding to the climate crisis.