Combatting climate change: NATO’s role in building climate resilience

Antony Froggatt

Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Antony Froggatt. I’m a Senior Research Fellow here at Chatham House. Welcome to those in the room in London, and welcome to those joining us online. We have a quite large audience, so, yeah, really grateful that you’ve spared the time to join us today. We’re here to – in this event to discuss Combatting Climate Change: NATO’s Role in Building Climate Resilience. I work in Environment and Society Programme, this is a topic very close to our hearts, and it’s – at least from my perspective, it’s obvious why. We are seeing the impacts of climate change as never before.

I mean, just to give a few examples. In the UK we saw that June just gone was the highest temperature ever recorded, we’re seeing global sea temperatures at unprecedented levels. More broadly, we’re seeing wildfires overwhelming Canada, and the consequences are spread across the continent, into North America. Reports this – of this year’s monsoon in South Asia could drive even more intense and devastating flooding than what we saw last year in Pakistan and India. And just remember that the impacts aren’t just immediate, they cascade across borders, so where we see an impact somewhere, the consequences may be felt in a different country or even a different continent, given the linked supply chains and the movement of people.

So, I think we’re all recognising this, none more than NATO, that needs – has recognised the importance of climate change and the need to strengthen its abilities in relation to climate shocks, and as an alliance, they have been preparing for safeguarding the issues around security challenges and acknowledging the impact across the whole of its sphere of operations. And in particular, NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept set out the ambitions to integrate climate change across the three core tasks of collective defence, crisis management and co-operative security. But in that context, and in it – but what we’re seeing is a challenge that climate change is, yeah, really threatening the ability to address these really quite crucial issues, as is some of the key issues that also are front and centre in terms of NATO’s mind, nonetheless, and of course, the situation of Ukraine.

So, what we’re here today to discuss just ahead of the NATO Summit taking place in Vilnius next week, is just how can NATO build up climate resilience across its internal structures and across its member states? And I’m very delighted that we have three really esteemed speakers for you today. We have Ambassador David Angell, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to NATO, we have Lieutenant General Richard Nugee, who is the Climate Change and Sustainability Lead within the UK Ministry of Defence, and we have Armida van Rij who’s a Research Fellow in the International Security Programme and she’ll be presenting findings of a Chatham House Report that was published today on this very topic.

So, I’m going to hand over to them, and in terms of how we’re going to operate today, we have lots of people online, so please do start putting in your questions. We then have our, I don’t know, 100-odd people within the room, I will come to you and try and group the questions. I’d like to remind everyone that this is on the record and it is being recorded so, yeah, please bear that in mind in terms of your questions, but also, panellists, in terms of your answers. So, we’ll have 30 minutes, sort of, interaction from the panel and then we’re going to open it up to everyone else in the room and online.

So, if I can turn to the Ambassador first. Obviously from Canada, Canada’s played an absolutely important role in terms of raising the profile domestically in terms of climate security, and by setting up a Centre of Excellence on Climate Change and Security. So, maybe you can just talk about what you think the priorities are for NATO going forward in terms of climate security, and are we expecting to see anything on this issue in Vilnius next week?

Ambassador David Angell

Antony, thank you for hosting us and for the questions. You talked about the wildfire issue in Canada. I was there two weeks ago. Had this discussion been taking place in Toronto or Ottawa or Montreal, we would all have had to struggle with really appalling air quality, acrid air coming in, and that’s a reminder to Canadians that the climate change issue is real and it’s with us. It’s not an issue for the future, it’s one we have to deal with now, and unfortunately, in, I think, every allied country population citizens are seeing from their own experience that this is an immediate issue. It’s not a new issue for NATO. NATO’s been working on environmental issues for 50 years. We’ve had a Green Defence agenda for quite a long time, but what is new is the urgency and the intensity with which we are addressing the issue.

Antony, you referred to the Strategic Concept that was agreed by leaders last year. The Strategic Concept is the apex document for NATO from which all of our defence planning and political work follows, and it’s worth just pausing to look at how the issue was framed. And I won’t read it at length but the key sentence in the Strategic Concept is that “Climate change is a defining challenge of our time with a profound impact on allied security. It is a crisis and threat multiplier, it can exacerbate conflict fragility and geopolitical competition,” and there’s more. But it makes the point that this is not a subsidiary issue for NATO, this is absolutely front and centre.

The response by NATO is commensurate to the challenge. We have benefited from extraordinary leadership from our Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who in a previous incarnation, was a UN Special Envoy from Climate Change, and also, before becoming Norway’s Prime Minister, was Norway’s Environment Minister. So, we have – we’ve had nine years of leadership from a Sec-Gen who is extraordinarily strong in general, but also deeply, deeply committed to these issues. And what allies have done recently is first of all, I think it was back in 21, Foreign Ministers adopted a Climate Change and Security Agenda, and then a few months later leaders adopted a Climate Change and Security Action Plan, and so, between the two you have a frame for NATO’s work going forward. NATO as NATO, in other words the organisation, but also 31, we hope soon 32, allies.

And in terms of the priorities, the action plan breaks work down into four areas. One is awareness, and the issue there is simply the imperative that we understand the geostrategic implications of climate change. We Canadians see the impact in our north, where warming is having an impact at a much rater – greater pace than most other places in the world, but we see it with sea level rise. We see it – it’s going to have a profound impact in security terms, and we need to understand that. A second area of priority is adaptation. Climate change will affect every aspect of how militaries operate. If you take sea level rise, for example, the areas we use as our ports are going to be affected. If you look at how – air pressure changes, the way we fly our aircraft is going to change. So, there are a vast array of implications that we need to absorb.

There’s also the important fact that as our societies struggle with the impact of climate change, and increased flooding is one example, the air quality issue, the wildfire issue we talked about is one example, our armed forces will be called upon more and more to provide a domestic support function. And it’s an essential role, and it’s one they’re very good at, but there’s an opportunity cost to everything and it means they’re not available to do other things.

Third, there’s a mitigation piece. There’s no escaping the fact that militaries are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and we need to find a way to reduce those emissions without impairing the effectiveness of our armed forces. Tanks emit, aircraft emit, warships emit, our military bases emit when we assist countries outside of the Atlantic area. Even setting up camp has a major environmental footprint impact, and so, we need to rise to the challenge of reducing the emissions without impairing our military effectiveness.

And then, fourth is the key issue of outreach and partnerships. We can’t do this alone. I mean, NATO is committed to being the gold standard organisation as regards climate and security, but we play a supporting role with regard to climate more generally, and even within the climate and security space, we need to work with industry if we are going to find ways of reducing the emissions of our military equipment. We need to work with the think tank community and with academia to find solutions. We need to work with partners outside of NATO, including Australia and New Zealand, for example, that are very, very aware of climate change impacts in their own region, as we are with regard to the impact in the Caribbean, for example, and so, working with partners is absolutely crucial.

Antony, you mentioned the Climate Change Centre of Excellence. This is an initiative that Prime Minister Trudeau announced at Madrid last year. The process for setting up NATO Centres of Excellence is not fast, so we’re not quite there yet, but we are very, very close and the response from allies has been superb. What these are, we have almost 30 Centres of Excellence at NATO and what they are is entities outside the chain of command, outside the formal decision-making process, where we can do creative thinking. And so, the Centre of Excellence on Climate Change and Security that’s going to be set up in Montreal imminently will provide a platform where we can work with partners, we can work with industry, we can make sure that we’re bringing as many partners to bear in taking forward the four agenda I spoke to.

In terms of Vilnius, major summit coming up around the corner. The summit we had in Madrid last year was about defining a new vision for NATO, and that vision was captured largely in the Strategic Concept. Vilnius is about delivering on that vision, and of course, we’re very focused on Ukraine, but as the Secretary General has said, you can’t choose between the priorities, and we’ve seen with President Putin’s weaponization of energy, weaponization of food, that there are direct linkages. And we in the Alliance need to reduce our energy dependence on carbons for security reasons, just as we have to reduce critical mineral dependencies.

So, what we will see at Vilnius, I expect, we will have another high-level dialogue, as the Secretary General is committed to doing on the margins of each summit. This is one way of making sure that we’re advancing our work. We will also see the release of the second Climate Change and Security Assessment, Impact Assessment. The first was issued in 2022, it’s worth a read, and it catalogues what NATO needs to do in regard to mitigation and adaptation, for example.

Antony Froggatt

Great. Well, I look forward to that, in particular, just seeing how it’s changed over the last year, I mean given, as you highlighted, the extent to which we’re seeing the impacts of climate change. Richard, if I could turn to you. Yeah, UK, maybe I’m biased – you – I think we’ve seen the UK within Ministry of Defence looking at climate change as a significant issue. Maybe you could just talk through how you have seen climate change become embedded within thinking and maybe touch upon these four areas: awareness, adaptation, mitigation and partnership, to the extent to which the UK is along similar lines.

Lt Gen Richard Nugee

Thank you very much, indeed, Antony, and I think just hearing the Ambassador then shows how much we are in unison, I think, with NATO, and strongly supporting what they’re doing.

In – sort of, how has the UK gone about it? I think – and some of this will be a, sort of, repetition in a slightly different way to what the Ambassador said, but there’s a really important, if you like, base assumption against all of this, which is that Ministries of Defence, NATO, our allies, are all there really for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to protect the nation, or protect the Alliance, and that that must come first. And so military capability must be upheld, and therefore, we must look at ways that embracing what is happening as a result of climate change in terms of equipment, and I’ll come onto that in a bit more, must enhance our military capability rather than diminish it.

And we’ve got to go – overcome actually – and a lot of what in the UK we did was trying to overcome all those sceptics who would turn round and say, if you like, “A green navy is by definition, a less good navy.” I think there’s a really important point that actually we should be working with the grain of the organisation and the grain of the organisation is that actually, we think in terms of improving our military capabilities at all times and trying to be the best we possibly can as a military force.

But I think the other side of it is identifying opportunities, and there’s a huge area of society which just sees climate change as a negative. It’s all doom and gloom, it’s all about the damage that it’s doing, and of course, it is doing huge damage. And as you just – there was some stuff in the papers today about – and I’ll just quote, “Since April the global sea ice is one million square kilometres reduced. The Antarctic this year is 2.5 million square miles less than average.” You know, this is going to have a profound effect on us as people, but it will also have a profound effect on how we operate.

But there are opportunities, and I think one of the things that the UK MOD has done is look for those opportunities. So, there’s geopolitical opportunities. New partnerships could come about as a result of climate change, new trade, new areas of the world where we might be able to reduce the amount of time it takes to get from A to B, if you use the Arctic as an example. So, there’s geopolitical opportunities. In order to combat change – climate change there are very significant changes in the innovation space and in the way that energy is being looked at, and we need to embrace that. So new technologies coming along, technologies that make us more self-sufficient, technologies that make us more resilient as forces. And whether that is energy or materials or recycling and therefore, saving cost, which is another great opportunity, there are opportunities for saving cost just by looking at different op – ways of doing things, then actually, we can look at improving our equipment for the same cost or, if you like, getting more bang for your buck.

And then, there’s a third piece, if you like, which is about tactics, and it’s one of those sadnesses that in Afghanistan and Iraq a very large number of our Soldiers were killed on combat logistic patrols, on resupplying our bases. But the thing that we were resupplying most of was water and fuel, primarily fuel actually. And so, if we can become more self-sufficient in our bases, in our deployed bases, either through the use of micronuclear as one example, which companies are working on both in the US and in Europe, or potentially through solar or through some other mechanism, there are lots out there, then actually you reduce the number of combat logistic patrols.

Now, that has three effects actually. It saves lives, because we lost a lot that way. It saves money. The US, I think, were quoted as saying that a litre of diesel to Bagram Airfield in – just north of Kabul cost five – sorry, a gallon cost $500, so that’s $150 a litre, give or take. And then the third piece, which is often not recognised, is that each of those combat logistic patrols, for example, had armour, had infantry and had aviation, making sure that it got through. All of that could’ve been used on the frontline if it wasn’t supporting combat logistic patrols.

So, this is an example where actually we’re looking at, and the MOD is looking very closely, at all these opportunities where you could improve what we do, make us more resilient, make us more self-sufficient. And out of that – so, out of that comes both mitigation, and we’re looking at how we can mitigate – the Royal Air Force has declared that they’re going to be Net Zero by 2040. They have to go down a route of – pretty much go down a route of sustainable aviation fuel of one form or another in order to be able to achieve that, because the vast majority of their emissions are from their fuel. So, you’ve got there an example of we must embrace it in order both to meet the Net Zero, but actually, sustainable aviation fuel is cleaner for the engines, it needs less maintenance, therefore will be cheaper in the long run. And if we can get it to a level that it’s the same cost as existing fuel, then you can – which may well be possible by 2040, then you will end up with just a better product, which is better for our air forces.

So, there’s mitigation, there’s adaptation. Are we looking – but Canada I think is – has been very forward-thinking in hardening some of the hulls of some of their warships to go into the Arctic. Any navy that feels it has a duty to go into the Arctic for keeping free trade open during – when those come through, ought to be doing the same, I would argue, and we’re not talking about hardening existing ships, we’re talking about designing it with new ships. So, there’s a whole load about adaptation.

And then, the final piece is about, sort of, climate and security, both awareness and outreach, and I completely agree with the Ambassador. Awareness is so important, not just to look at what is happening around the world, but look at the cascading effects of the, sort of, energy security, water security, food security, border security, and of course, our citizens’ personal security. All of those need to be thought about, and the cascading effects between them, to – which will inevitably, I think, lead to greater tensions and potentially conflict.

And I’ll finish by saying something that the UK Defence Minister said up in COP 26 to the NATO Secretary General, which is, “It is very often the militaries who will have to pick up the pieces when the world starts to become more contentious,” and so the militaries need to understand that in a way that means that they can resolve the issues because they understand them.

Antony Froggatt

Great. Thank you very much. Yeah, lots to think about. Some questions are coming in, but I’ll turn to Armida first. Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, Chatham House published a paper, you’re one of the co-authors, others are in the room, “Preparing Nature for Climate-Related Security Challenges.” Maybe you could just talk through some of these conclusions, and then our other panellists could respond, things that they’d like to pick up on, and then we’ll open up the floor.

Armida van Rij

Great.

Antony Froggatt

Please.

Armida van Rij

Thanks very much, Antony. I’ll just give a very high-level overview of the report and kind of, our basis of the argument, and then perhaps we can go into a bit more detail in it during the Q&A and the discussion. The report, which I’m personally very excited about, is the result of a joint Environment and Societies and International Security Programme here at Chatham House. My co-authors, Anum Farhan and Signe Kossmann, who are somewhere in the room, and I have worked on this for the past year or so. It’s part of a CASCADES project, which is a wider project looking at the cascading impacts of climate change, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme.

What we did was look at the most effective levers that NATO has or needs to develop to be able to effectively address climate-related security risks, and rather than concentrating solely on why this is important, we focused on how NATO can do this. As the Ambassador unl – outlined very much at the start, NATO is not starting from scratch on this and there is a lot that has already been happening in this space, and I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that, and there’s also a lot that can be learnt from other partners and from other initiatives that have been developed, either from the UN or the EU and others.

The Climate Change and Security Impact assessment of last year does a really good job, as well, of showing the climate change impact on NATO, and I’m very much looking forward to see the 2023 edition, but our starting point really has been to try and think about these issues from a military perspective. So, to the General’s point, how can we enhance capabilities while also tackling and adapting to climate change?

To give you the bottom line upfront, by increasing military effectiveness and strengthening the resilience of NATO operations, structures and capabilities, NATO can also adapt to climate change and prepare itself to respond to climate-related security risks. As we’ve heard before, this is not a zero-sum game, and investment in climate change adaptation and mitigation can also strengthen the Alliance and make it more resilient, and we really have to get away from this idea that it’s an either/or choice. It is not, these issues are intrinsically linked and connected.

What I will say is, while we’ve tried to take this from a military point of view, and I think that’s very important, we do still need to recognise that this needs to happen at pace. Climate change is already here, as we’ve heard, and it is already impacting us, and we all know what the global ramifications will be of not meeting the 1.5 degree global warming target as per the Paris agreement. So, for us the absolute priority has to be building consensus on the – of the importance of the Climate Security agenda. I can go into lots of detail, specifically about what NATO can do, and I’d be delighted to do so later on, but ultimately, until all allies are agreed on why this is important and how important it is, action will always remain limited and stilted. The 2020 Strategic Concept that was mentioned, and the Action Plan, are a really good start, but our point of view is that to make a real difference the alliance needs to go further.

Beyond the consensus-building point that I was making, we see three priority areas for NATO. The first is to strengthen political and institutional structures, for example, by investing in cultural change within the Alliance. The second is to strengthen mechanisms for anticipating climate risks, for example by having stronger climate risk assessments that can then be used in the NATO defence planning processes. And the third is to build more resilient operations, to the example that the General was giving earlier, by reducing energy consumption at bases.

Now you’ll ask me, “Great, how?” Just to give you a flavour, I’ll give you a couple of examples, but first, I want to pick up on the General’s point earlier on the use of microgrids at bases. So, these are locally run, independent sources that can generate power and – or can generate renewable energy on site, and to me, this is a really good example of a win/win situation, or win/win solution, where on the one hand it will reduce energy consumption, but on the other it is an awf – also less likely that the base will be affected if the power supply were to be cut or somehow affected by either malicious activity, or by extreme weather events. So, to me, this really, kind of, shows the win/win situation that we were talking about earlier.

The General mentioned how resupply convoys are a huge weakness in any kind of military operation, and to put a stat to that, in 2007 in Iraq and Afghanistan there was an average one casualty for every 24 resupply convoys. That’s a huge number of cava – casualties just for resupply, so if we can diminish that, as the General put far more eloquently than me, that has a real impact on personnel, on capabilities, etc.

The other thing I want to highlight is this question around the political structures and addressing the institutional challenges that we need to look at, and really, here the point I’d like to make is a need to invest in cultural change alon – inside of the alliance. Throughout the course of this project, it’s sometimes felt like we’ve been speaking to two different audiences. One who, very much like the panel here, is very much bought into the agenda, gets why this is important, gets why we need to do this. The other is saying, “Well, sure, but I’ve got Russia in my backyard, and I’ve got a huge pollution tax, so how am I going to do this? This is just not my priority,” which is a fair point.

And so, there is this really important point around strengthening the institutional and political mechanisms within the Alliance and to bring allies all up to scratch. One quite ambitious idea that we have for that, which is ambitious, I will recognise, is to, as we’re talking about the 2% of defence spending – of GDP on defence spending spent, which is a pledge that was set in 2014, that pledge will expire in 2024 and is currently being renegotiated, what the allies could do is include a climate-related target as part of that. So, currently, there’s already a 20% of procurement, part of that 2% pledge. Why not add a climate-related target to that, focused specifically on resilience and adaptation measures? That’s just one idea. It is more difficult and it’s politically more sensitive, but that is something that could have a lot of impact if it were to be successful.

That’s to give you a flavour. Perhaps I’ll just finally say that we recognise that we’re having this discussion in a really difficult context. There’s Russia’s ongoing War in Ukraine, there’s ongoing provocations by China, and ultimately, there’s always going to be these really difficult trade-offs and a balance that needs to be struck between addressing immediate threats, and longer-term challenges. We’re talking about Russia today versus tackling China in the future, as well as climate change. But again, as I was saying earlier, these issues are intrinsically connected and we cannot separate them out and by tackling one, we are also indirectly tackling the other one.

Having said that, we recognise that this is very difficult, there is a constraint on capacity and resources to just dedicate to this agenda, and so, to try and address some of that and to make it a little bit easier we’ve divided our recommendations into three categories. One, quick and easy wins, the low-hanging fruit that frankly, really shouldn’t take too much effort. Second, the medium-term successes, and finally, the difficult stuff, but that if it’s done and if it’s done well, could have a lot of impact, and I think the climate target fits into that bucket. And ultimately, doing those things will allow NATO to continue to deliver on its three core tasks. I very much invite you to take a look at the report and the recommendations as well. There’s a lot more to say and I’m sure a lot more will come up, but I’ll stop for now.

Antony Froggatt

Great, thank you very much, indeed. A very rich series of presentations. If I could pick up on one thing that you said and then, turn to the panellists and maybe you could pick up on any others, but the three areas you mentioned is strengthening political and institutions, more resilient actions, etc., which I think we covered quite a lot, but the anticipating climate risks as a third area, I don’t know, Ambassador, if you have – how you – how this is being done. I mean, you talked about the report coming out, but it clearly, is a challenge of our times. It’s unprecedented changes, as we’ve all heard, in terms of the impact of climate change. How do we go about anticipating what we think is going to be the situation next year, never mind five years or ten years from now? So, what is NATO doing in this area?

Ambassador David Angell

Well, thank you, Antony, for the chance for responding again, and the report that Armida just spoke to really is excellent. A couple of points in response to both colleagues. First, just to acknowledge how important it is that Lieutenant General Nugee’s position actually exists. It’s not the norm, kudos to the UK and to MOD for creating a co-ordination position at the three-star level. It really is important and it’s a practice that I think all the other allies, including Canada, ought to be following.

The comments that were made on mitigation I agree with entirely. The point is we are – we – there is a recognition that we have to do this differently, and so one of the responses by the Secretary General, for example, is to begin work on a new analytical methodology for greenhouse gas emissions by the military. We need to figure out how we can work with industry, design military kit that is more responsive to climate changes, but as the General emphasised, without in any way impairing military effectiveness.

And there’s – this is an area where Canada and the UK can actually do a lot of work together, because one of the areas of leadership that we’re both embarking on is in each of us hosting one of the offices – one of the two offices, and there’s an office in Tallinn as well, that’s part of the UK office, of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, which is NATO’s major response to try to ensure that we, as an alliance, maintain our technological edge. This would be a key contributor to the development of the new technologies we’re talking about, and it’s an area where Canada and the UK jointly are playing a leadership role.

On the – the report, as I said, really is excellent, and I agree with the premise that we need to do more to adjust the culture. It’s happening, but it doesn’t happen overnight. The language in the Strategic Concept that I read at the outset and that you referred to, Antony, is agreed language. The way that NATO works, and the Strategic Concept was negotiated by the 31 – I guess we weren’t quite 31 at the time, 30 then allies, and the way that NATO works – I’ve been doing multilateral diplomacy for 30 years now and NATO really is unique in a number of ways, and one is the decision-making process.

Ministers meet every – either Foreign Minister or Defence Ministers, either – every six or seven weeks. We have summits frequently, we had three in 2022, we usually have at least once a year, one each year. And what this means is we have a decision-making process through which issues can be introduced and really, really churned, with decisions taken as and when they’re needed, and so this is not a situation where we’ve done climate and security, thank you, we’re moving on. We can bring in new aspects and we can continue to progress. And the decisions that are taken are fed by a network of committees, on which all the allies are present, and so, what that means in practice is that in each and every allied capital the civilian administration, the military, work together and so, when leaders take a decision, there is complete buy-in across the Alliance, both civilian and military. So, the climate change culture change is happening, and it will continue.

In terms of the Defence Investment Pledge and 2%, first of all, I agree entirely that the Defence Investment Pledge needs to align with the Strategic Concept. This is the threat assessment that leaders endorsed, and how we invest our defence expenditure ought to be a reflection of that, and that includes the language on climate change.

On the issue of specific targets, I just – you know, a very slight cautionary note, in that, first of all, if there’s a proliferation of targets, it’s very hard to do justice to them. But the bigger point is that while NATO, we expect, will play a crucial role on climate and security, every one of the 31, we hope soon 32 allies, has signed up to the UN Framework Convention and it’s through that process that we sign up to our commitments. And it – I think most allies, even those most strongly committed to action in this area, would want to avoid a situation where we’re entering into different commitments and different fora. What we’re doing is implementing the security side of the broader commitments we’ve entered into through the UN process, as 31 parties to that process who happen to be allies.

Antony Froggatt

Great, thank you. Richard, do you have any quick responses before I open it up, and then – yeah?

Lt Gen Richard Nugee

So, just a couple from me. Firstly, there is obviously a potential tension between a national requirement and a NATO requirement, and if NATO goes too hard in saying, “You must,” it might clash with a national requirement, and therefore, we just need to be completely alive to that. And in the UK, we’re going down a sectorial approach to mitigation, because that is the way the country’s going, and we’re trying to tie in with other government departments and the way that the country is going. So, we just need to be slightly alive to that. How that can be overcome, I think, is by NATO, and I would dearly love NATO to do this though I’m not quite sure how, to set standards. To set standards that have to be met by countries, and those standards would be, of course, completely compatible with where we’re trying to get to. It may not be a terribly good example for some, but the idea of a Single Fuel policy that NATO came up with, it took quite a long time to get through, but actually it was a Single Fuel policy for the whole of NATO which all NATO agreed to try and abide by. That is just an example of what we might be able to do in the future.

And then, anticipating climate risks. It is really difficult because it is so complex, but we should be using what NATO is doing in terms of trying to design a climate intelligence, if you like, coming from those who are deployed to try and understand what’s happening in the climate env – in the environment in which they are deployed, to feed back to try and improve the models. And so, it almost becomes a reporting of deployed troops, wherever in the world they’re deployed, to say what’s happening to the local environment, and then NATO can start to build a bigger picture and a more effective picture, particularly if those troops have been put in areas which are under conflict because climate change is causing so much tension.

Antony Froggatt

Yes, and feedback…

Ambassador David Angell

Or - just for – maybe I’m cheating, but just to comment on the Single Fuel policy. The underlying point is we need to address climate change in a way that reenforces interoperability, as well.

Antony Froggatt

Yeah, completely agree. Armida, very, very quickly, and then I’m going to open it up.

Armida van Rij

I just want to come back quickly on two points, well, three points. First, I completely agree on the Single Fuel policy point. I think – or rather, the interoperability point. Having said that, I think going forward, we will also need to look at the Single Fuel policy, because ultimately, that’s not going to be sustainable.

Antony Froggatt

Yes.

Armida van Rij

However, at the moment, I don’t think we’re anywhere near where alternative fuels, more sustainable fuels, are ready for deployment. They’re hugely energy intensive to develop, so we’re not quite there yet.

Two points, one on credibility, one on standards. So, just on the new emissions methodology, which has been proposed and is being developed. I think this is a really positive development, but I think there’s also a point here around that NATO needs to build credibility and legitimacy as an actor in this space. And so, there’s been a lot of, kind of, back and forth about this methodology and what that’s going to look like, whether it’s going to be public or not, etc. What we would say to that is, it doesn’t per se needs to be public because there are sensitivity concerns around that, I get it, but there does need to be an external independent method of verification of the methodology to make sure that it is sound, and I think that will also help build NATO’s credibility and legitimacy in this space.

The second point, very quickly, on the standardisation agreements, I think is a really, really good point, and they take forever to develop and to, kind of, put together, and so they’re very resource intensive, but when we have them, they’re very useful. And so, one of the things we’re proposing, again, in the recommendations bit of the report, is to use standardisation agreements to have resilience baselines for all future infrastructure that NATO may develop or build or construct, etc. Again, longer term, more difficult to do, but that could be a good way of using those standardisation agreements to build in resilience from the onset when developing new infrastructure.

Antony Froggatt

Great, thank you. So, questions. Ah, I knew there was going to be a lot. I’ve got 30 on – 31 online as well, so I’m going to take them in groups of three, if I can, and ask you to respond very quickly so that we can try and get two or three rounds. So, if we can start at the front and do this front row with three first, so the gen – young gentleman, slightly older gentleman, and then the lady there.

Member

Thank you.

Antony Froggatt

And if you could give your names as well, that’s always helpful.

Shay Mitchell

Shay Mitchell.

Antony Froggatt

From?

Shay Mitchell

UK.

Antony Froggatt

Okay.

Shay Mitchell

As per usual. On the point about micronuclear technology, and you’ve talked a lot about the impact of Fukushima and how it’s affected our view of nuclear energy, do you think that it’s actually realistic to push for nuclear energy, considering the darker image that nuclear has as a source of energy?

Antony Froggatt

Thank you.

Member

This young gentleman’s from Alberta, Canada, and the reason I’m here in London is ‘cause my house looked like it was going to catch on fire. So…

Antony Froggatt

Really? That’s what…

Member

So, that draws me to your comment about pace, and I’d like our panellists to address pace. I hear the word pace, I left home ‘cause it looked like it was going to be on fire. I’m wondering what it will take to increase pace. When I hear about 2040 I’m thinking that seems like eons from now. We’re going to do something by 2040, that doesn’t seem to make terribly much sense, and then I hear about multilateral diplomacy. I sure hope that NATO doesn’t deploy its military side with multilateral discussions, because I don’t think it would be fast enough, and I think that that’s some of the strength which NATO has, a command structure that says, “We got to deal with it now, rather than in some distance future.” So, perhaps you could help me with that.

Antony Froggatt

Great, thank you, and then the lady here, thank you.

Dr Jehan Baban

Thank you very much. It’s Dr Jehan Baban from – I am a Chartered Environmentalist, and I am President of the Iraqi Environment and Health Society UK. As you know, there is no specific pattern for the impact of climate change globally. This is going to be a problem, ranging from floods in Europe to high temperatures, desertification, thunderstorm, and water scarcity in MENA and Africa, especially in Iraq. The question is, what mechanisms NATO members use to adapt their policies and strategies to meet climate change and achieve sustainable security objectives? Thank you.

Antony Froggatt

Thank you very much. So, there’s three questions there. If I could just add onto some of the – clustering some of the questions that are online about technologies, the question about micronuclear. Questions about running more ships on different technologies, is this feasible, electrolysis for osmosis, and in some ways the role of renewable energy. I think you touched upon that, some of the important – in terms of solar, but maybe you could – if there’s anything else that you could add in, in relation to other hopeful technologies or technologies that may play a role in the future. So, the pace question, as well.

Ambassador David Angell

Yeah, three questions. On nuclear energy, you know, the political debate on nuclear energy differs across the 31 countries of the Alliance and certainly, we are – it’s a nuclear alliance, you know, we’re heavily engaged in the technologies that are part of that. There’s no barrier to deepening any engagement on that. There may be just political discussions within each country, but that’s what the political process is about.

On pace, the urgency is understood, but what we’re trying to do is really, really, really hard. I mean you’re, basically, redesigning how major pieces of military equipment operate, and that is going to take time, it’s going to take work with industry, it’s going to require that demand signals to industry be sent in a very clear way, and you’re talking about the redesign of military hardware, which very often, takes upward of ten years just in the normal design cycle. So, this is not an area where we can say that there will be immediate change, but the work is beginning immediately, and the framework is there, and NATO deploys when NATO agrees internally that deployment is necessary. We’re not multilateralising that, we’re not changing the way that we operate.

On the question with regard to military operations, one of the areas where there is work being done immediately is to make sure that in the planning of all of our military operations and our emissions and our activities, climate change is factored in, and that’s being done now, and where we work with partners, as we do in Iraq, Canada had the privilege of commanding for its first two years the NATO mission in Iraq, we work very closely with the host governments. The mission that we have in Iraq is a training mission, and it’s a capacity-building mission. It’s not a military operation in that sense, but we work extremely closely with the Iraqi authorities and if this is an – identified as an area where we can help Iraq as partner develop capacity, then that is something that we would be very open to doing.

Antony Froggatt

Richard, answer very briefly. I’m going to add another question for you because it said, “Interesting to learn the diesel figure that you gave, the $500 a gallon. Any idea about the cost of fresh water?”

Lt Gen Richard Nugee

I don’t have a figure for the cost of fresh water but what – it goes to exactly the point that the Ambassador has just been making, actually, which is that the very first thing that our operations need to do is understand what impacts they are having on the environment. We did a study in Mali, with our troops in Mali, and were, frankly, horrified by the length of the supply chain for fuel, but more importantly, the length of the supply chain for bottled water, and the number of trucks that was coming in with bottled water. And what happened to the bottles? Well, we wanted to recycle them, but that proved to be close on impossible at the time, and therefore, they were, you know, they were a real problem for us, all these bottled water. There’s a Dutch company that can produce 1,000 litres of water a day and that’s enough for a company, sorry, a company of infantry, from the air. So, the new technologies are coming along, they are coming, and we’ve just got to have confidence that those technologies will get bigger and bigger and more effective, and more cost effective.

Another point that I would just emphasise something for – about pace. The first vehicle that I commanded, which was in – it’s an armoured fighting vehicle 432, doesn’t matter what it is, it was older than me when I first commanded it, it is still on the battlefield. Hardware tends to last a very long time, indeed. Our aircraft carriers we absolutely expect to be there in 2050/2060, and what we’re not going to do, I would suggest, unless some really new technology comes along, is change the engines on our aircraft carriers. So, we’ve got to find ways round trying to reduce our emissions from our aircraft carriers without changing the engines, and that probably means a change in fuel, and that probably means much more investment in new maritime fuels. I mean, I notice there’s a conference this week on new maritime fuels across the world. So, looking at those new technologies, nuclear is but one. It’s a completely different type of nuclear, it’s extremely safe, and it’s being developed in the US and the UK at the moment, and I think is a real opportunity for us for deployed troops.

And then, finally, in terms of military operations, sustainability. Understanding what we can do to make our operations more sustainable, and I mentioned just energy, but actually, there’s many other ways of doing it. Whether it’s geothermal, whether it’s boreholes, whatever is correct in the environment, and what we don’t want to do is deprive the local communities, by putting too many boreholes in we’ll deprive the local community, so that would not work, but finding ways of using new technology to make ourselves more self-sufficient and more sustainable must be the answer. And I think the technology is moving at pace and coming on, and I think that is where the pace is going to be delivered, is by new technologies just ramping up very fast.

Antony Froggatt

As you said, the challenge of phasing out older technologies is the same. Armida, do you want to come in very quickly, ‘cause then I want to get another round? But again, I’m going to throw in another question to you. Given your nationality, I think you can answer this. “NATO co-ordination with actions in the EU, what about a new taskforce dedicated to resilience? Will NATO use this channel to deal with the issue?”

Armida

Hmmm. So, to tackle that last one first while it’s fresh in my mind. So, a off the record quote from someone who I spoke to about this, basically, said, “There’s a lot of co-ordination, there isn’t a lot of co-operation,” and I’d be delighted to be told that I’m wrong by the Ambassador if that’s not the case. But EU/NATO co-operation on climate security issues could be stronger than what it currently is. There are political issues which we don’t need to go into now which hampers that. They recently established a taskforce looking at resilience specifically of critical national infrastructure. Climate security is part of that agenda, but it doesn’t mean that the taskforce is solely focused on resilience, and I think this is a very good suggestion and I’m pretty sure we have something about that in there.

I quickly want to address the tech point. I agree, I think there’s a lot of really interesting technological innovations that we’re going to see, kind of, being put in use over the next few years and decades, and that’s really exciting. I think it’ll also be really interesting to see what’s going to come out of DIANA, which is a Defence Innovation Accelerator joint with NATO and appearing on a bunch of other academic institutions, and I think that will really be able to put some meat to the bones of some of these technological advances. What I will say is that there is a limitation to tech, and tech isn’t going to provide the solution to every political problem, and that goes back to my earlier point around building consensus on this issue.

And just quickly on the pace question, which I think is really important. Again, that goes back to my consensus point, and we know, as we’ve heard, that NATO is doing a lot on this front. I also think there’s something about the politics of it versus what the international staff can just get on with and do and implement quietly in the background, but they do require resources and capacity, etc., and so, I do think we need to see increased funding and resources for the Emerging Security Challenges Division. We’ve highlighted this in the report. They are responsible for designing some of the climate security strategies within NATO, as well as funding for the Science for Peace and Security Programme, specifically to address climate-related challenges. And what we’ve seen from previous programmes funded under this initiative is that it also helps enable co-operation between allies and partners who are not NATO by definition. So, I think, again there, I think there’s a lot of opportunities.

Antony Froggatt

Great. More questions. Take from maybe the middle block here, got three quick ones and then, I’ll take that gentleman there just ‘cause his hand went up so fast. And please keep them very short and we’ll see if we get another round in.

Hugo Barker

Hi, Hugo Barker from Imperial College. It’s wonderful to read the report, it is fantastic, I did read it this morning, and to see the mention of DIANA and the mention of DIANA on this panel. What role do you see DIANA playing in the innovation of climate technology? Do you see it playing more of a use of mitigation within the military context, or do you see a more just geostrategic context where you could innovate around technologies such as fusion and these, kind of, deeper things that may not have military capability? Thank you.

Antony Froggatt

Directly backwards, you want to just pass it?

Hugo Barker

Yeah.

Member

Ambassador, do you see a role for NATO expanding its deterrence role and its diplomatic sphere of influence to discourage any state from invading another, as we know that war is one of the most damaging impacts on the climate and the climate is the greatest risk to NATO countries?

Antony Froggatt

Thank you, and then the gentleman, again, directly back. That’s great.

Kennedy Shulapur

My name is Kennedy Shulapur, international student and relation. Now, my question is on – we know that NATO as a foundational military standard setting, and then, we’re now talking about climate change and how NATO can be – and climate resilience. Now, my question is, would these be – create a strategic imbalance in doing and redirect the economic resources of NATO and as well as, aren’t we sensing a counterproductivity in all of this discussion? Thank you.

Antony Froggatt

Thank you, and then finally, here.

Euan Grant

Yeah, thank you very much. Euan Grant, I’m a former UK Law Enforcement Intelligence Analyst who’s worked on World Bank, EU, capacity building programmes in climate-affected countries, Somalia, Yemen, Jordan. My question is, which organisations, widely defined, are co-operating enthusiastically and energetically with NATO, and by implications, which are not? I’ve read between the lines of Dr van Rij’s comments about NATO-EU. Thank you.

Antony Froggatt

Thank you. So, international co-operation, and maybe again, I’ll throw in a couple more questions. “What are the prospects of NATO supporting the designation of ecocide as an international crime?” which I think is a – it maybe builds on one of the other questions. “Happy US Independence Day,” was one of the questions, which is very nice.

Ambassador David Angell

Thank you from Canada.

Antony Froggatt

There you go. And I guess, quite a few questions along the lines of, “Climate change has led to a humanitarian disaster, regional tension and violence. What mechanism has NATO put in place to curb these concerns?” So the, sort of, the wider questions about addressing the immediate impacts. Can we start and go back along the line that’s – Armida, can we start with you?

Armida van Rij

Hmmm hmm. Perhaps the first thing to say, I think, is that we need to be quite careful in terms of where NATO can make a difference and where it can’t, and perhaps shouldn’t step into the space. So, I don’t think NATO should address every single aspect of climate-related security issues, and I don’t think it can do that very effectively, and I think there’s a risk that by stepping into that space, it would take agency away from other actors who are better placed to respond, thinking, for example, specifically of climate-related migration. So – and this is where the working with partners and the international co-operation point really comes in. The EU is a key partner, we’ve heard about the Indo-Pacific partners who are going to be heavily affected, and already are, by climate change. So, there’s a lot of, kind of, lessons learned and platforming of knowledge that can be done there. On – so I think that goes to the ecocide point and the international organisations point.

On DIANA, so the beauty of DIANA, obviously, is that’s dual use, and I think we just need to bear that in mind. On the extent to which it should just focus on mitigation and, kind of, deeper intensive technologies, I think that will also depend on prioritisation, and to some extent, again, that will depend on the political, kind of, trickledown, what’s decided at the top level in terms of prioritisation. I’ll leave it at that.

Lt Gen Richard Nugee

Most of these questions are not really for me to answer. I think the Ambassador will make a much better answer than I will, but I think that Armida’s already said about DIANA. DIANA’s really important because it offers, I think really, for the first time, a really innovative approach that NATO wants to take. Of course, it’s to try and find solutions to some of NATO’s problems in terms of mitigation and adaptation, but to the point, no solution is likely to be just military or just civilian. We’ve got to look at the intersection between the two and see how we can adapt one to the other. So, I think DIANA is a really good opportunity to look at both dual use.

And I was going to pick up on the last point about human disaster relief. We should be really clear that every academic document that I’ve seen in the last two or three years says that militaries are going to be more involved in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and whether that’s at home, which we call military assistance to civil authorities, or whether that’s abroad, which we tend to call humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, doesn’t matter. We’re going to be more involved, and if you look at what’s happened, for example, in Australia, and I appreciate it’s not a NATO country, but in Australia they’ve had a year of COVID followed by a year of fires followed by a year of floods. The military has been fully committed to that. You look at Pakistan, a third of the country under water, the military was fully committed to trying to solve that issue.

That’s absolutely where the militaries are being sent. It’s not particularly good for military training in terms of our primary role, but it is what is happening, and that is what we need – and so we need to be absolutely alive to what are the best practices that we can take from that? What are the equipments that we need for that? What are the co-operations and collaborations that we can do? So, for just one example, in the Caribbean, the French and the British working together to try and solve the problems, rather than working independently.

Antony Froggatt

Thank you. Ambassador, you’ve got a few you need to answer.

Ambassador David Angell

A few questions in a few minutes.

Antony Froggatt

Two minutes, yeah.

Ambassador David Angell

DIANA’s potentially extremely important in this space, but it’s not the only actor in this space. The Centre of Excellence can be extremely useful in convening industry and academia and thinking through some of these issues, and we also have other parts of the NATO enterprise. We have the Alliance Command Transformation in Norfolk, for example, which thinks about war fighting in the next century and does a lot of work on innovation themselves. What we have to do is harness all of the bits and pieces in the NATO enterprise that can work in this space. DIANA is still in a design stage, as is the Centre of Excellence, and I’m sure that some of these climate change issues will be designed into how they move forward.

On deterrence, NATO’s role is – NATO is, first of all, a defensive alliance exclusively for the Euro-Atlantic area, and so, when leaders talk about defending every inch of NATO territory, we take that very seriously. One of the outcomes from the summit in Vilnius next week will be the development of very robust new defence plans that will put a very strong emphasis on collective defence. Our core tasks include crisis management, working with other countries to advance security, but we don’t have a deterrence role outside of the Euro-Atlantic area, and I don’t see NATO taking that on. The Washington Treaty is very clear, we exist for the defence of the allies and their populations and territory.

In terms of working with other organisations, we work with many, UN, AU, but none is more important than the European Union. They really are a strategic partner for NATO. We have seen that on Ukraine, the two organisations have worked hand-in-glove, using the respective tools and remits. NATO does not work on sanctions, so Canada, UK, US, non-EU allies, have worked very closely to align behind the EU’s work on sanctions, ‘cause they do, do sanctions. We do hard defence. We’ve worked in our respective lanes and worked extremely closely, and I would say, effectively. It’s not always a seamless partnership, it can’t be. We do have some frictions, and Armida alluded to those, and those come from outside and we can’t solve them internally. But we work around those and what we – I mean, first of all, we are very encouraging, we Canadians, of the EU taking on a more robust defence role, but what we really want to see as the NATO-EU partnership becomes closer, is to see it drill down and do more practical things, and this is an area where we can do that.

Designation of ecocide, that’s not us. Armida’s point about, you know, horses and courses and organisations staying within their remits, if member states of the UN choose to designate ecocide, then that would inform what we do, if it’s an obligation that allies sign onto. But we are not a legal entity, it’s not – it would be outside of our mandate to be a frontline actor there. Why don’t I stop there?

Antony Froggatt

I think that’s great. Well, thank you all very much, indeed. I’m very sorry, there’s lots of questions on the chat. Maybe we can share those electronically with you just to see the other questions that we touched – would’ve liked to talk about if we had time. I’m sorry for those in the audience that we haven’t been able to reach you. Maybe just for me, four things I take away from this. One was I think, very clearly, the opportunities that exist in terms of decarbonisation. It is possible it probably will be cheaper. Ultimately, we know there’s – that’s the way that society goes, so the quicker we move the better, the less investment we make in redundant technologies.

Coming very clear to me and online was the question about partnerships, and again, it’s a societal change that is necessary, both in terms of mitigation and in terms of adaptation. Public sector, private sector, different government departments and different other international institutions, we must all take up this challenge. The other thing that I heard very clearly was the new requirements for the military, and I think the point that you made was about how much more armies and military will have to look at, sort of, domestic activities. Forest fires, flooding, etc., all of these will be really – I don’t think we can begin to understand the extent to which that will be front and centre in terms of activities going forward.

And that leads me onto my final questions about, sort of, the new risks and working with – one of my colleagues here is working – trying to think about what does the world really look like in 2040, from a geopolitical perspective, but from a climate change perspective? This is a huge challenge for us really to get our head round and the military, as everyone else, needs to really spend the time now to think about that and train the leaders for that time, because it really will be a different set of thinking that’s necessary.

So, we invite you all to read the report. Thank you all very much, indeed, for coming. The Ambassador has to rush back to Brussels so he won’t be hanging around for questions, unfortunately, but if we could all thank them very much indeed, that would be great [applause].