Has Climate Securitisation Obstructed Military Decarbonisation?

Oct 15, 2024 | Doug Weir
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According to climate security orthodoxy, climate change is a threat multiplier. It is a threat to national security. It is something that is happening to us and which amplifies societal tensions, feeding instability. Governments must take note and act accordingly, not least by developing compensatory military strategies and resources. 

It is a framing that was intended to integrate the climate crisis into military planning, and was particularly aimed at climate-sceptic US policy-makers and public. And since 2007 it has proved highly influential, going global, spawning innumerable papers, reports and briefings, hours of high-level international debate, and becoming the bread and butter work of many think tanks. It has largely defined the scope of what is, and isn’t viewed as “climate security”.