report – International Military Council on Climate and Security

Introduction

Conference Attendees Outside Swedish Defence University. (Andreas G. Warne)

On January 24-25 in Stockholm, Sweden, the International Military Council on Climate & Security partnered with the Swedish Defence University to host the inaugural conference, “Integrating Climate Change into Professional Military Education.” The conference brought together military educators and climate security experts to share best practices and lessons learned regarding climate security-related training, gaming, and curriculum development. Ms. Caroline Baxter, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Force Education and Training for the US Department of Defense (DoD), provided keynote remarks about the efforts of her office to develop new force-wide guidance and programs on climate security topics.

Overall, the group was in strong agreement that the impact of climate change on security is a threat military education cannot afford to ignore. In the past eighteen months, militaries in nearly 70 countries have been deployed to respond to climate-related disasters. Participants around the table shared multiple concrete examples from their careers in which weather or climate-related hazards affected military readiness and operations. To prepare the future force and navigate the security environment of the coming decades, militaries need to embrace innovative educational approaches to climate security.

By Brigitte Hugh and Erin Sikorsky

The Balkans region will experience significant climate change-related hazards, including droughts, heatwaves, tropical storms, and wildfires. Given the region’s reliance on hydropower, and its position as a highly trafficked land route for migration to the European Union, these climate impacts could result in cascading security risks.

In an interactive scenario exercise hosted by the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS) Expert Group, adelphi, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the Berlin Climate Security Conference – hosted by adelphi and the German Federal Foreign Office – in October 2022, exercise participants identified two of the most important, or diagnostic, and uncertain drivers of change in the region – primary external investment sources (e.g. European Union [EU]/NATO or China) and regional cohesion.

Participants then created four future scenarios which explored how these drivers would combine with climate impacts to create security risks. Analysis of these scenarios yielded five key recommendations for NATO countries and EU leaders:

Develop equitable climate resilience strategies to minimize regional divides
Leverage climate security engagement for cooperation
Adapt current interventions for climate engagement
Engage with stakeholders at different levels of governance
Invest in building civilian trust

The most important finding from the exercise is that the riskiest climate security scenario for the Balkans is one with no external engagement. In other words, some investment, regardless of the source, is better than none.

The exercise is based on “Climate Security Snapshot: The Balkans”, a volume of the IMCCS Expert Group’s World Climate and Security Report 2022.

Read the full findings in the summary report here.

Download Full Report PDF

Category: report

Integrating Climate Change into Professional Military Education: Event Summary

Introduction

New Report: Climate Security Scenarios in the Balkans