Conflict and Collaboration: Security Challenges in the Era of Climate Change

By Michelle Poulin, Program Associate for Global Security and International Affairs

As global temperatures rise and extreme weather events become more common, nations face unprecedented safety and security challenges. While communities strive to protect themselves from the harmful impacts of climate change, each measure taken to increase perceived safety can have unintended consequences. As we surpass the 1.5°C threshold outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the question remains: how can we ensure that our short-term security goals are aligned with climate scientists’ mitigation recommendations?1

On May 15, 2024, the Academy’s Global Security and International Affairs program area held an explor­atory meeting at the House of the Academy in Cambridge to address this question. Led by Tanisha Fazal (University of Minnesota) and Neta Crawford (University of Oxford), both members of the Academy’s Committee on International Security Studies, the meeting “Climate Conundrum: Bridging the Gap Between Science and Security” brought together climate scientists, global security scholars, and climate policy experts with the goal of enhancing understanding across disciplines as a way to foster collaborative research on climate and security challenges. 
 

Climate-Driven Conflict and Military Emissions
 

Militaries engage in warfare to protect the economic and security interests of their nations, often resulting in destroyed infrastructure, devastated ecosystems, and loss of life. Yet, often overlooked is the substantial impact of military activities on global greenhouse gas emissions. The Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) estimates that the world’s militaries emit 5.5 percent of all global greenhouse gases, and research by Neta Crawford indicates that the U.S. military is the largest single institutional emitter.2

Unlike private companies and other government agencies, militaries are exempt from reporting emissions under the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. This creates what meeting participants described as a security paradox, in which efforts to enhance safety and security can simultaneously introduce instability. Militaries strive to enhance a nation’s safety, but their unreported emissions increase global temperatures and extreme weather events. Participants highlighted research suggesting that higher temperatures and worsening extreme weather can intensify conflicts in some situations—conflicts that in turn can lead to increased militarization and emissions.3 As a result, increased short-term securitization can lead to long-term climate instability and greater potential for climate-driven conflict. 

Emissions from conflict arise not just from activities directly related to warfare, but also from the adjustments made to civilian life as a result of conflict. In wartime, enemies often target fuel storage depots and transport vehicles. The aftermath of oil fires and spills can have a significant impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. CEOBS estimates that more than 2 percent of global emissions in 1991 resulted from oil fires during the Gulf War;4 70 percent of U.S. military operation emissions are from aircraft.5 Identifying indirect conflict emissions, which stem from changes in civilian life caused by warfare, is challenging. However, recent research is revealing some troubling findings. During the meeting, participants referenced a 2023 study by Lennard Le Klerk and colleagues, which illustrates how the Russia-Ukraine War has forced passenger airlines to adjust flight routes to avoid conflict zones. This change has led to longer flights and an additional 18 million tons of CO₂ emissions compared to prewar years.6

At the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) in 2021, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that global emissions will never reach net zero until military emissions and mitigation goals are reported and tracked.7 Meeting participants discussed various approaches to increase transparency, including local-level advocacy near military installations, combining military and climate funding opportunities, and utilizing electoral power. They also acknowledged the importance of addressing security concerns regarding the military’s emission reporting before implementing reporting policies. 
 

Solar Radiation Modification 
 

The climate scientists who participated in the exploratory meeting shared their insights and analysis on the emerging field of solar radiation modification (SRM), or solar geo­engineering. SRM technologies seek to reflect a portion of solar radiation back into space, thereby lowering global temperatures. While still in the theoretical and untested stage, the most viable and commonly discussed SRM technology is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). This method involves dispersing sulfur dioxide particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight. Experts estimated that it would take between ten and fifteen years to invent, test, and produce viable SAI technology, suggesting that the first countries to deploy SRM technologies will be those with sufficient funding and motive (for example, soaring temperatures), like Saudi Arabia. There is no evidence to suggest that any country is actively developing operational SRM capabilities at this time.

Several meeting participants expressed concern about the unpredictable effects SRM would have on global and regional temperatures and precipitation. Introducing aerosolized sulfur into the atmosphere could potentially lower average global temperatures, offering a means to mitigate the adverse effects of global warming. However, accurately predicting the regions that would be most affected by this intervention is challenging. Moreover, abruptly discontinuing SAI deployment could pose significant dangers, with temperatures likely to rebound quickly and then increase, particularly if climate mitigation measures are not concurrently pursued alongside SRM. Acknowledging these risks and uncertainties, participants agreed on the need for more funding for SRM research. They emphasized the importance of utilizing this research to inform national, regional, and global SRM policies prior to any implementation of these technologies. 
 

Challenges to Equitable Global Governance 
 

Global governance includes measures such as coordinating multilateral efforts, negotiating and enforcing treaties, ensuring leaders are held accountable, settling disputes, and overseeing the regulation of emerging technologies that could have a global impact, like SRM. The United Nations (UN) serves as the primary global governing body, comprising 193 General Assembly member states and a fifteen-member Security Council. The Security Council, consisting of five permanent member states (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and ten rotating member states, has significant authority, including approving new General Assembly members, imposing sanctions, and authorizing military intervention. This arrangement gives permanent member states substantial influence over policies, and as all five permanent members states are major emitters, international law often reflects the interests of these polluting nations. 

However, the United Nations has shown a commitment to addressing climate change. In 1992, 154 UN member states ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the organization’s primary climate treaty. Since then, 44 more states have joined. Member states convene annually at COP meetings to review progress in climate mitigation and propose new initiatives. Significant agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, have resulted from these COP meetings. 

Each COP negotiation revolves around determining responsibility for financing and executing climate mitigation measures. Equitable models demand that the biggest emitters should contribute the most and shoulder the greatest responsibility. But the uneven distribution of global power makes this difficult. The United States, for example, has emitted roughly one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases, yet expecting the United States to lead 25 percent of global efforts in mitigation and climate reparation is unrealistic.8  Meanwhile, the UN’s use of inaccurate data in climate projections for the Global South hinders assessments of progress and the formulation of effective policy recommendations.9  Meeting participants stressed the importance of centering voices and institutions from the Global South in climate discussions. This would require reconceptualizing global security to be more inclusive of human security and anti-capitalist per­spectives.
 

Climate Communication
 

Participants noted that many global climate policymakers privately ack­nowledge the improbability of achieving the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal, but they are hesitant to express this publicly because of the potential political consequences. They reflected on the shortcomings of the “1.5 to stay alive” campaign and speculated about whether communicating the importance of each 0.1° increase could be more impactful. They discussed the influence that elites have on public opinion, and how public sentiment can sway elites’ decisions.10 One participant shared an example of how military leaders are interested in reducing emissions, citing the climate consciousness among young recruits compared to previous generations. Participants also noted that elites affiliated with polluting industries often use communication strategies that minimize concerns about climate change. They suggested the need for additional research to develop effective methods for countering such messaging. 

Another topic discussed at the meeting was how the urgency conveyed in climate messaging influences its impact. Several participants warned that heightened urgency could increase militarization and nationalism. While climate communication often focuses on the dire consequences of inaction, participants also explored the potential benefits of conveying optimistic visions of a climate-resilient future, particularly through fiction. Some of the examples shared include Matthew Hoffman and Teresa Kramarz’s We Did It?! magazine, James Burke’s After the Warming film series, and the University of Delaware’s popular course on climate fiction and science communication.11 Another suggestion was to incorporate health-related messaging. Given people’s concerns about their own health and that of their children, prioritizing health in climate messaging could highlight the urgency of the issue. 
 

Questions for Consideration
 

The participants identified several questions for future research: 

• How can we encourage and design a military emissions reporting regime?
• How will climate change impact multilateral power dynamics, conflict risk, and global governance? 
• What are the effects of climate change on democratization? 
• How can policymakers effectively convey the reality of surpassing the 1.5°C threshold while minimizing the associated costs? 
• How might the private sector impact the credibility of climate security research, particularly SRM technology? 
• How can we co-create climate scenarios and improve risk models that focus on climate security and conflict?
• How can we better support Global South researchers and diversify climate knowledge?
• How can liability laws and the insurance industry render climate-risky ventures uninsurable, and how might this influence political discussions about climate priorities? 

For more information about the Academy’s recent work on climate change, please visit the Academy’s website.

Endnotes

• 1Mark Poynting, “World’s First Year-Long Breach of Key 1.5C Warming Limit,” BBC News, February 8, 2024; and Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, December 12, 2015, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104.
• 2Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) and the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), Estimating the Military’s Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions, November 2022; and Neta C. Crawford, “Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War,” Brown University, Watson Institute, November 13, 2019.
• 3Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict,” International Security 16 (2) (1991): 76; and Marshall Burke et al., “Climate and Conflict,” Annual Review of Economics, May 13, 2015.
• 4Conflict and Environment Observatory, “How Does War Contribute to Climate Change?” June 14, 2021.
• 5Crawford, “Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War.”
• 6Lennard de Clerk et al., “Climate Damage Caused by Russia’s War in Ukraine,” Center for Environmental Initiatives Ecoaction, September 1, 2023.
• 7Conflict and Environment Observatory, “Ticking Boxes: Are Military Climate Mitigation Strategies Fit for Purpose?” February 19, 2024.
• 8Hannah Ritchie, “Who Has Contributed Most to Global CO₂ Emissions?” Our World in Data, October 1, 2019.
• 9Saroj K. Mishra et al., “A Need for Actionable Climate Projections Across the Global South,” Nature Climate Change 13 (2023): 883–886.
• 10Lauren Ratliff Santoro et al., “Exploring the Direct and Indirect Effects of Elite Influence on Public Opinion,” PLOS ONE 16 (11) (November 19, 2021).
• 11“We Did It!?” We Did It!? (accessed June 10, 2024); James Burke, After the Warming, Maryland Public Television, 1989; and University of Delaware, “ENGL 425–Climate Fiction, Science, and Communication” (accessed June 10, 2024).