To what extent is climate change a threat to international security? This report examines the evidence and analysis to date. It suggests that without resolute action, climate change will overstretch many societies’ adaptive capacities. This could result in destabilisation and violence, jeopardising national and international security. In order to avoid these developments, an ambitious global climate policy must be put into operation over the next 10-15 years.
An effective international climate protection regime must ensure that global greenhouse gas emissions are halved by the mid-21st century. But this major international challenge has arisen in parallel to a far-reaching shift in global power relations: the ascendancy of states such as China and India and the reduced influence of the US. This transition is likely to be accompanied by turbulence in the international system, which may make it more difficult to achieve the necessary breakthroughs in multilateral climate policy. In order to provide a counterbalance, the European Union must take a leading role in global climate policy and convince both the US and the newly ascendant Asian powers of the importance of concerted efforts to avoid dangerous climate change.
If an ambitious global policy is not implemented, climate change is likely to:
- Exacerbate existing environmental crises such as drought, water scarcity and soil degradation, intensify land-use conflicts and trigger further environmentally induced migration.
- Become a new source of conflicts. Sea-level rise and storm and flood disasters could in future threaten cities and industrial regions along the coasts of China, India and the US.
- Cause large-scale changes in the earth’s system such as the reduction of the Amazon rainforest or the loss of the Asian monsoon, which could have incalculable consequences for the societies concerned.
- Have varying social impacts around the world.
Climate policy is a preventive security policy. If climate policy is successful in limiting the rise in surface temperatures, the climate-induced threat to international security is likely to be averted. The key challenge is to take resolute climate action within the next 10 to 15 years.
- A new multilateral world order is needed that is viewed as fair by all countries. The European Union can play a pioneering role in achieving resolute and fair cooperation in climate protection and poverty reduction.
- The United Nations needs to be reformed to include a high-level Council on Global Development and Environment.
- International climate policy should make two degrees centigrade the upper limit for global warming. The EU should aim for a 30 per cent reduction in its own greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and an 80 per cent reduction by 5050.
- Adaptation strategies for developing countries should be supported as a means of preventing conflict, including adapting water resources management and agriculture to climate change.
- The EU should continue to help stabilise fragile and weak states that are additionally affected by climate change. Migration should be managed through cooperation and by further developing international law.
- Economic policy should develop strategies to avert the possible destabilisation of the global economy as a result of climate change. Global information and early warning systems should be expanded.
