NATO Secretary General: “Climate change is also a security threat”
Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg sat down for an interview with POLITICO Europe. When asked what NATO is doing to address the risks of climate change, he responded by asserting that climate change is in fact a security risk, and an issue to consider in the context of conflict prevention, peace and stability.
He also noted that NATO does not have the luxury of choosing the challenges it faces, and has to work to adaptto the changing security environment. Indeed, the challenges that NATO faces are serious and climate change, particularly if not adequately addressed by NATO member states, could very well multiply those challenges and ultimately challenge the NATO mission. However, though the Secretary General appreciated the risks of climate change to NATO’s security landscape, he unfortunately stopped short of describing it as a priority of his.
From the interview:
Alice Stollmeyer: “Last year head of the UN Climate Summit in Paris NATO has stated that climate change poses significant threat multipliers and I was wondering could you tell us what NATO is doing to address this and how to, amid all the other crisis, to keep the climate security threats on the agenda?”
Secretary General Stoltenberg: “First of all, I think it is very important to underline what you just said and that is climate change is also a security threat because it can really change also the conditions for where people live, create new migrant and refugee crises and scarce resources, water, can fuel new conflicts. So climate change is also about preventing conflicts and creating more stability and prosperity, which is good for peace and stability.
Second, NATO is addressing how we can also address, how we can contribute. NATO is not the first responder to climate change. We are a military alliance, but partly everything that can make also military vehicles, military equipment more energy efficient will be good both for the environment but also for the sustainability of the armed forces. So energy efficiency, less energy dependence of the armed forces is good for both the armed forces as armed forces and for the environment. And that’s actually the thing we can do as an alliance. We are also sharing this information with allies, trying to increase their focus and understanding of this, but of course the most important things that can be done with climate change is more related to energy, to ministers of the environment, to other areas than defense.” (57:18 min mark)
NATO Secretary General: “Climate change is also a security threat”