Climate change will threaten NATO’s military effectiveness and its ability to preserve Euro-Atlantic stability. NATO should integrate climate considerations into its defence and deterrence posture or risk increasing operational costs and security threats.
The impacts of climate change are at once rapid and slow, widespread and isolated. They can weaken the resilience and abilities of states to respond to climate-related threats and trigger longer term instability and insecurity. Over the past 60 years, at least 40 per cent of internal armed conflicts were related to natural resources, and the most devastating armed conflicts between 1950 and 2000 occurred in biodiversity hotspots. According to the Notre Dame Global Adaptation (ND-GAIN) Country Index, 12 of the 20 countries most vulnerable to climate change are also sites of armed conflict.
As an alliance charged with ensuring the security of its members, NATO must look beyond immediate challenges and consider how to prepare for a context in which climate impacts are becoming more frequent and severe. This chapter highlights how climate change will impact NATO’s military effectiveness and its ability to deliver on its strategic and operational objectives to preserve Euro-Atlantic stability.
Climate change will affect all aspects of NATO’s future operating environment
Climate change is both a ‘threat multiplier’ and the ‘shaping threat’ directly affecting NATO’s military capabilities. Record high temperatures, drought, wildfires, flooding and more intense hurricane and tropical cyclone seasons will reduce or degrade the capacities of NATO personnel, equipment, weaponry, tactics and infrastructure – these risks are already being seen within NATO countries themselves and are not only limited to extreme environments. Climate hazards can also divert resources and attention and could leave the alliance more vulnerable to other threats, including conventional military attacks. NATO must therefore climate-proof itself to meet its core objectives of defence and deterrence.
NATO’s operational capabilities and the health of its military personnel are at risk from climate change. On the current emissions trajectory, by 2030 more than 400 million people globally are likely to suffer temperatures surpassing the workability threshold each year. Member states are already seeing higher temperatures affect military operations: during a military exercise in Poland in 2019, temperatures exceeded 40°C inside armoured weapons carriers, preventing soldiers from being able to operate them for more than a few hours. Working in changing environmental conditions can also impact physical and mental health: in 2018, the US military suffered 2,792 cases of heat stroke or heat exhaustion among its service members, and figures have remained consistently high since 2012. Higher temperatures can also lead to the transmission of infectious diseases while increased rainfall can expose personnel to waterborne diseases. Not only could this intensify the strain on personnel, but it could also increase the need for medical assistance, protective equipment or vaccinations.
Climate change is also testing the resilience of military installations and infrastructure. The US Department of Defense (DoD) has revealed that two-thirds of US military bases, including Hampton Roads in Virginia, which holds strategic importance for NATO, are especially vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events. Major ports in Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg, which are hubs for NATO’s eastern flank, are also under threat. In Alaska, melting permafrost is leaving military facilities at risk of collapse. More recently, in July 2022, an unprecedented heatwave across the UK melted a runway at a Royal Air Force base and caused wildfires that disrupted military drills.
Military hardware, in particular air and naval equipment, is weather-sensitive and must be made more resilient to climate stress. Higher frequency of strong winds, storms and increased salinity in the ocean can impact the performance of ship turbines and submarine operations. Humidity and cloud cover can affect intelligence gathering, satellite monitoring and surveillance, radio communications and strategic reconnaissance. In Afghanistan, dust storms and enduring high temperatures necessitated more frequent maintenance of helicopters and restricted the ability to move essential supplies. Even grounded equipment remains vulnerable to climate change: extreme heat can affect the storage of ammunition as was seen in 2011, when self-detonating munitions caused huge explosions at a Greek-Cypriot naval base and led to several casualties. NATO’s ability to defend and deter will weaken unless it adapts to these climatic conditions.
Member states are already experiencing the consequences of climate change on military capabilities and readiness, and it is clear that their operations will become more expensive, more time-intensive and more technically challenging unless they adapt. The US DoD’s most recent budget shows this concern in its request for $3.1 billion in climate-related investment, including funds to make equipment and infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather.
For NATO HQ and member states, early investment in climate change adaptation will likely make a significant contribution to long-term resilience, reduce the fiscal impacts of climate-related events and increase military effectiveness. Economic inaction will only increase operational costs in the long term, impacting national budgets at a time when member states are still dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and inflationary pressures. Importantly, the ability to sustain the political will for NATO funding – the 2 per cent of GDP guideline for military spending – post war in Ukraine may also become more difficult. Without proper preparation for future crises, NATO could suffer intangible losses, such as strained political cohesion between member states or the loss of public support.
Cascading and geopolitical impacts of climate change
Less obvious and more complicated is how the cascading and compounding impacts of climate change are shaping the future of geopolitics, making the possibility of social instability, state collapse and armed violence more likely in the near term, and creating intersecting challenges for NATO’s security and defence posture. In addition to possible societal unrest due to the cascading impacts of climate change, actual warfighting and hand-to-hand combat are going to look different in a climate change-affected world. The types of equipment used, the way operations are planned and conducted, and when and where forces are deployed will be radically different in extreme climates.
The ripple effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate the interlinkages between conflict, environmental degradation and societal instability.
Climate change and extreme weather can disrupt critical ecosystems, resources, infrastructure and services, and cause water and food scarcity, health issues and severe loss of livelihoods. In societies with fragile institutions, these impacts can fuel inequality, trigger political instability and violence, and lead to displacement and migration. NATO may not be able to predict a given disruption, but it must understand that such disruptions will become more likely and it should consider the types of disruptive situations that could emerge. In an interconnected world, the erosion of state stability and security in a distant region can have cascading impacts on wealth and power in the Euro-Atlantic sphere. NATO’s ability to understand and respond to such compound risks requires a strategic focus on resilience-building to withstand or absorb shocks and to recover rapidly. A resilient alliance will be crucial to managing multiple security threats that can increase over time as the level of disruption continues.
The ripple effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate the interlinkages between conflict, environmental degradation and societal instability, and how these can lead to greater security risks for NATO and have far-reaching implications on food and energy security. Both events have compounded food and energy crises, hitting the most vulnerable countries hardest, including Egypt, Bangladesh, Iran, Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and Pakistan. Many of these countries rely on lean supply chains and some may only have a few days’ worth of food within their own borders. This high level of food and energy insecurity has the potential to generate widespread social revolts, migration, humanitarian crises and extremist activity in these regions. Pakistan, for example, was still reeling from the pandemic when it was hit with devastating floods in 2022 and now faces a severe energy and economic crisis. These countries will likely seek help from NATO member states, China or other actors, and the kind of support NATO member states decide to provide could become a political issue.
Russia’s grip on European gas supplies came into stark view with the invasion of Ukraine. The fact that 41 per cent of the EU’s gas was imported from Russia highlighted the importance of NATO seeking alternative and reliable sources of energy to uphold its collective defence priorities. This scenario presents NATO with greater incentives for the energy transition and the promotion of more renewable sources of energy across its armed forces. Yet the alliance must remain mindful of the economic risks a global transition might have for fossil fuel exporting countries, particularly those with fragile state authorities, and the potential for financial challenges and social instability.
At the same time, NATO must consider the resilience, diversification and sustainability of critical mineral supply chains to enable military innovation. The demand for critical minerals to build more sustainable equipment and infrastructure in the defence sector could lead to strategic challenges and competition over access to areas where these resources originate. China controls 60 per cent of lithium and 80 per cent of cobalt supply globally, minerals that are key for military functions including electric-powered tactical vehicles, autonomous systems and battery storage. Further down the value chain, China is refining rare earth elements at a rate five times greater than the global capacity to mine them, showing China’s hold on critical minerals. The US Geological Survey’s list of minerals vital to national security has grown from 35 in 2018 to 50 in 2020. Many of these minerals – such as neodymium and samarium, which are used in magnets that can withstand high temperatures – are crucial to the military’s ability to operate in extreme climate environments. To respond to this, NATO should encourage member state collaboration across mining, production and supply-chain sectors to ensure that no further dependencies are created, and to prevent retaliatory responses or competition over resources.
