Erin Sikorsky, Director, Center for Climate and Security              CCS0034

Written Evidence Submission, Erin Sikorsky, Director, Center for Climate and Security

As Director of the Center on Climate and Security, a Washington, DC-based research institute of the Council on Strategic Risks, I am pleased to submit this written testimony to the Select Committee on the security risks posed by climate change to the United Kingdom. Before my position at CCS, I led climate and environment analysis across the US intelligence community while serving on the US National Intelligence Council.

Though progress has been made toward the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement of keeping global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius of warming, it is not happening fast enough. 2023 was the hottest year in recorded history, with hazards such as wildfires, extreme precipitation, and drought regularly affecting more and more communities. Even if all emissions were cut tomorrow, there would still be enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that the world would see continued warming and increased climate-related hazards over the next few decades. Such a trajectory poses direct and indirect security risks for which the United Kingdom must prepare, including threats to military readiness, operations, and critical infrastructure, increased risks of instability and conflict in strategic geographies, and shifting geopolitical dynamics.

Direct Climate Security Risks: Readiness, Operations and Infrastructure

As climate hazards intensify, militaries are frequently on the front lines of response while also suffering impacts themselves. According to the Center for Climate and Security’s Military Response to Climate Hazards Tracker, militaries have responded to more than 260 incidents over the past 23 months.[1] From fighting wildfires to conducting flood rescues, from cleaning up after extreme storms to attempting cloud seeding amid drought, militaries have been used in myriad ways. Across NATO countries, militaries have deployed dozens of times, with significant deployments in Canada, Greece, and the United States in recent years to fight wildfires. The UK military has recently supported domestic flood relief efforts and provided air support to the wildfire response in Cyprus. Some military leaders have expressed concern that demand for their HA/DR services may outstrip supply in coming years as climate change intensifies and that readiness risks are associated with the uptick in HA/DR and defense support to civil authorities activities.

At the same time, climate hazards threaten military installations, bases, and equipment performance. For example, in the summer of 2022, an unprecedented heatwave melted the runway at the busiest Royal Air Force (RAF) Base, Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, England.[2] It is hard to fulfill the RAF's mission to defend Britain's skies when your planes cannot take off. In the United States, hurricanes, flooding, wildfires and atmospheric rivers have caused billions of dollars of damage to military bases and interrupted training exercises. Meanwhile, heat extremes will affect military aircraft performances and payloads going forward.[3] Studies have found that changes in air density due to extreme heat can lead to “dramatic performance degradation to all aviation assets.” The US Air Force could see a decrease of up to 8.5 percent in the payload its C-17s can carry by 2039, depending on warming trajectories.

These risks impact competitors and adversaries alike. Open-source analysis of thirty-four Russian airfields in the Arctic found evidence of damage likely due to permafrost thaw at twenty-seven of them, including some facilities that were beyond repair.[4] In a 2022 press conference right before the invasion of Ukraine, President Biden noted that one of President Vladimir Putin’s real problems was “a burning tundra that will not freeze again naturally.”[5] For its part, Chinese coastal shipyards and the artificial islands it built in the South China Sea are increasingly vulnerable to sea level rise and extreme precipitation. China’s Ministry of Natural Resources has noted that the relative rise in sea level is increasing more rapidly at coastal bases in Hainan and Jiangsu provinces than at other bases in the country.[6]

State Instability

Climate change exacerbates instability and conflict risks that may also pose security threats to the UK. Of the sixteen most climate-vulnerable countries, nine already host UN Peacekeeping Missions. Slow-onset disasters such as desertification and droughts that unfold over time will undermine rural livelihoods in many developing countries, which can cause cascading instability risks, particularly in countries that already experience poor governance. Climate change is also likely to undermine food and water security. According to the World Bank, the populations facing the highest risks of hunger from climate change-driven crop failures are already poor subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.[7] Reflecting this dynamic, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, speaking at the UN Security Council in 2021, noted, “Look at almost every place where you see threats to international peace and security today – and you’ll find that climate change is making things less peaceful, less secure, and rendering our response even more challenging.  That’s the story of Syria, Mali, Yemen, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and many other places beset by strife.“[8]

As countries struggle to respond to intensifying climate hazards, this can also cause instability and insecurity risks. Some governments are already obscuring their inability to successfully tackle wildfires or manage water security with disinformation and crackdowns on marginalized groups. For example, in part due to an unprecedented heatwave in Iran in 2021, 97 percent of the country faced water shortages and high energy prices over the course of the year. Multiple protests by farmers in the summer and then in the fall were met with overwhelming force by the government, with scores of demonstrators injured.[9] According to a 2023 study from the Center for Climate and Security and the Woodwell Climate Center, “Climate change will further decimate Iran’s food and water security—with a diminishing water supply and reductions in country-wide average wheat yields of up to 10 percent by 2040—likely fueling socioeconomic crises and exacerbating government repression,  particularly in rural and ethnic minority communities.”[10]

Such challenges will extend to the Global North and wealthier countries as climate hazards intensify. As the 2021 US National Intelligence Estimate on the security risks of climate change noted:

The United States and others…are in a relatively better position than other countries to deal with the major costs and dislocation of forecasted change, in part because they have greater resources to adapt, but will nonetheless require difficult adjustments. Climate impacts such as excessive heat, flooding, and extreme storms will prove increasingly costly, require some military shifts, and increase demands for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. Adjusting to such changes will often be wrenching, and populations will feel negative effects in their daily lives that will become more difficult to reverse without successful efforts to reduce net emissions and cap warming temperatures.[11]

As I wrote regarding the United States in The Hill in 2021, “Scholars point to two key ingredients states need to maintain stability and avoid conflict in the face of climate hazards: legitimacy and capacity. Historically, the United States has had plenty of both. Yet, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, Americans’ trust in government is not only very low, it is also polarized — with 36 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents voicing trust, while only 9 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents saying the same. In terms of capacity, the United States may soon fall short there as well. Its water infrastructure, agricultural practices, and land management techniques in the West were designed for a climate that no longer exists and will come under even more strain as the pace and intensity of climate shocks increase in the coming years.”[12]

Similar dynamics are at play in the UK and other Western countries. A 2024 European Climate Risk Assessment warned that Europe was the fastest-warming region in the world and judged with high confidence the current wildfire risk to the population and built environment for southern Europe as “critical” and requiring “urgent action.” The report also assessed that current EU capabilities are insufficient to manage the risk, noting that the risks are outpacing the EU’s ability to make policy.

Geopolitical Dynamics

Finally, climate hazards and the policy responses to climate change will shape the geopolitical landscape. A warming world opens up new frontiers of competition as countries scramble for access to diminishing and shifting fish stocks, faster transportation routes in a newly open Arctic,[13] and deposits of newly valuable critical minerals. Climate change is reshaping countries’ national interests while simultaneously affecting existing areas of competition and risk. 

The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. On average, the Arctic is three degrees Celsius warmer than in 1980, and sea ice is shrinking. Scientists estimate the region could experience sea-ice-free summers as early as the 2030s without significantly changing carbon emissions trajectories. Even in a scenario of rapid emissions cuts in the next few years, the region could be ice-free in the summers by the 2050s.[14] These changes are driving increased interest in the Arctic at the same time as the Russian invasion of Ukraine upended cooperation across the Arctic Council and led to the ascension of two Arctic countries (Finland and Sweden) to NATO. Thanks to these changing geopolitics and the melting ice, China perceives an increased opportunity for access to resources, such as fish stocks, oil and gas, and critical minerals. For its part, Russia is worried about increased threats as its frozen north melts while also interested in pursuing economic and political gains from a newly opened Northern Sea Route.

Another place in which geopolitics and climate change collide is the relationship between the Global North and the Global South. As the latter is hit more frequently by climate hazards despite contributing just a small fraction of carbon emissions over time, its demand for climate finance is growing. Meanwhile, the Global North has failed repeatedly to meet its promised levels of climate finance funding. The US Director of National Intelligence has identified this divide as a security risk for the United States.[15]  China is eager to try to take advantage of this divide. At a UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting on climate change last summer, China’s ambassador recommended that the UNSC “...could consider authorizing its field missions in those countries more heavily affected by climate change to collect information on the host country's annual receipts of climate finance from developed countries and to inform the Council on a regular basis.”[16]

Security Challenges Associated with Climate-Linked Migration

In the coming decades, more people around the world will be on the move than ever before due to climate change. The World Bank’s Groundswell report estimates that by 2050, climate change will lead as many as 216 million people in the regions of Latin America, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and East Asia, and the Pacific to migrate within their home countries to secure employment, food or water security. Climate-driven migration can contribute to a range of security risks, though it is critical to recognize that migrants themselves are not the security concern. As Brigitte Hugh and I wrote in an article about NATO a few years ago, the security risk pathways of climate migration are as follows: first, such migration may contribute to instability by straining governance and resources in developing countries in which populations are moving from rural areas to cities; second, such migration may heighten the possibilities of destabilizing, reactive political responses in recipient countries when migrants cross borders; finally, political forces in some countries may take advantage of migration pressures as an opportunity to sow chaos and weaponize migration.

Managing the climate migration challenge requires an approach that centers the protection and rights of affected populations and people on the move. The UK should be a leader in upstream investments in adaptation and resilience in climate vulnerable countries that will allow populations to remain in their homes, yet if and when they can no longer do so, the UK must also support and enable safe, regular, and orderly migration pathways that promote human dignity and climate justice. Such a forward-leaning approach will minimize the security challenges associated with migration outlined above, and help prevent bad actors from weaponizing migration in such a way that harms the migrants themselves and UK cohesion and community trust.

A Climate Strong National Security Framework for the UK

Given this range of threats facing the UK, how can it successfully navigate a climate-changed future? I recommend the following areas of focus for the Select Committee.

First, the UK must aim to integrate climate considerations across foreign and security policy. There isn’t a region or issue area in the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs or the Home Office that won’t be affected by climate change in some way. If climate data and a better understanding of climate hazard trajectories are not brought into regional and country strategies, policymakers will miss or get things wrong. Climate change cannot be siloed off in a separate office or department but should be mainstreamed.

Successfully doing so will require a climate-strong national security workforce with the scientific and data literacy skills to understand the output from climate models and how to engage with scientific counterparts. In addition to building out more robust climate training efforts across the security and foreign policy community, the UK could consider improving internal cross-government infrastructure. For example, it could consider UK-appropriate versions of newer structures in the United States, such as the Congressionally-mandated Climate Security Advisory Council, which brings together the US intelligence community and US federal scientific community or the National Academies Climate Security Roundtable, which links climate security experts in academia with US security actors.[17]

When it comes to climate-driven migration, the UK should look to the guiding principles outlined by the Climate Migration Council on which I sit. The Council has identified three considerations: first, whenever possible, prevent or limit displacement associated with climate hazards; second, protect the rights of affected communities and people on the move; and third, enable safe, regular, and orderly migration pathways that promote human dignity and climate justice.

Finally, the UK should continue a rapid transition away from fossil fuels while also focusing on adaptation and resilience investments and prepare for systemic climate shocks. While the UK military has been a global leader in climate security strategic assessments and is making significant progress toward its climate security goals, its approach is out of balance in so far as it focuses much more on mitigation or cutting emissions versus adaptation and resilience.  In the section marked ‘adaptation’ in the UK Ministry of Defense Climate Security Strategic Approach report, four of the seven specified categories primarily focus on cutting emissions or ‘net zero’ – green transition, fast follower, innovation, research and development, and operational self-sufficiency. To be sure, clean energy technologies can provide adaptive ‘co-benefits’ for militaries in some cases, yet rarely help militaries tackle the more strategic challenges posed by increasing climate stress. Similarly, of the thirty-seven concrete action items the report promises by 2025, only three fully focus on adaptation and resilience. Twenty focus solely on mitigation or carbon emissions, nine focus on both adaptation and mitigation, and five are related to biodiversity and nature on the military estate.[18]

It is tempting to think of climate change as a linear progression: as temperatures rise, climate hazards will worsen. Yet it is increasingly clear that the planet must prepare for climate change-induced discontinuities. The climate is a complex system, and part of the reason climate scientists were shocked by such high temperatures in 2023 was that those temperatures did not reflect existing climate models – which, up until then, had generally predicted the climate trajectory at certain carbon levels fairly well. In other words, as the world approaches two degrees Celsius of warming, the world is entering a system in which humans have no experience, and the scientific understanding of how different extreme events will affect one another is limited.[19] Regular foresight and scenario exercises are one way to challenge assumptions about climate linearity and stationarity and can help militaries and security agencies in the UK prepare for an uncertain future. As the US Defense Department’s Climate Risk Analysis noted, threat analysis “...based on historical frameworks will not be sufficient to prepare for future risks complicated by a changing climate.”[20] Challenging outdated historical planning and strategic frameworks to account for climate change is one of the best ways the UK can prepare to weather the risks of the next few decades.

Conclusion

Climate change is reshaping the national and international security landscape and will continue to do so for decades. It is exacerbating existing security risks and creating new ones, whether direct risks to militaries and critical infrastructure or indirect risks of food, water, and resource insecurity that may lead to tensions within and between states. Countries that invest in a climate strong national security workforce, a mainstreamed approach to climate information, and increased adaptation and resilience investments will be best prepared to navigate these challenges. I commend the House of Commons for taking up this inquiry and look forward to the opportunity to further engage with Parliament on this critical issue.

May 2024