NATO is paying more attention to the security risks of climate change, along with warming’s implications in the Arctic, a new report shows.
Why it matters: The 75-year-old security alliance has unique capabilities to analyze and prepare for the challenges that a warming world poses.
- Such threats range from melting sea ice and Russia’s provocative moves to boost its military bases in the Arctic to increasing migration flows into Europe and North America from climate change-fueled extreme weather events.
The document is unique in analyzing the climate threats and responses of NATO’s adversaries, including Russia and China.
- It notes that Russia hasn’t incorporated climate change into military planning, while China has a more forward-leaning strategy.
Zoom in: The report, along with discussions held during the NATO summit in Washington last week, also injects a newly emerging cybersecurity threat into the climate change security discussion.
- The analysis shows that NATO allies are already experiencing climate change effects in the form of extreme weather events, including floods, heat waves and wildfires.
- These have led to military deployments to help civilian authorities, such as the more than 2,000 military personnel deployed within Canada to fight that country’s worst wildfire season on record last year.
- It also cites 29 international military deployments in 2023 to respond to climate-related emergencies in 14 NATO countries, such as a dozen allies that helped Greece fight wildfires that year.
Increasingly, though, the alliance’s military forces will have to contend with more extreme weather and climate conditions.
- That includes extreme heat that challenges the operating limits of their weapons systems and support infrastructure and threatens troops’ health.
Threat level: NATO has also found that its adversaries, chiefly Russia, are spreading climate and energy-transition-related disinformation in order to undermine political will for climate action.
- It cites an uptick in Russian disinformation tied to the European green energy transition on social media and on online news sites. Russia, a major producer of oil and gas, has an interest in slowing the transition to renewable energy sources.
- Disaster-related disinformation is another emerging trend, which seeks to impair NATO members’ ability to respond effectively. This was observed, for example, in association with the deadly fire in Lahaina, Maui, in August of last year, the report states.
- Russia, for example, sought to benefit from that by spreading the narrative that the U.S. should be aiding its own citizens in Hawai’i instead of Ukraine, the report notes.
What they’re saying: “Russia and other NATO adversaries use climate disinformation to sow division, delay action, and cynically undermine the public understanding of climate change in ways that put people in harm’s way during climate-exacerbated disasters,” Kate Cell, a senior climate campaign manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Axios.
The intrigue: NATO’s climate report states that tipping points in the climate system — which could lead to flooded cities or the collapse of agricultural productivity in some locations — “could fuel a rapid escalation of instability and displacement in regions already experiencing climate stress.”
- Managing the effects of climate change simultaneously with the ongoing energy transition, along with its more robust defense posture “poses unprecedented dilemmas for members of the alliance,” the report states.
Between the lines: For years, national security assessments regarding climate change have pointed to rapid Arctic warming, sea level rise and other effects that could imperil military installations and operations.
- In unusually granular detail, the new NATO analysis looks not just at military bases, but also members of fighting forces, who are facing increased heat stress, wildfire smoke exposure and other impacts that could render them less battle ready.
- It notes the growing number of “black flag” days when it is too hot (above 95°F) for operations in NATO’s operating areas in Iraq, for example. Canada has found its tank crews become “operationally ineffective” when the temperature climbs above 95°F as well, with personal cooling solutions required.
- Extreme heat with temperatures above 104°F can render certain helicopters unable to generate sufficient lift for takeoff, particularly heavy-lifting choppers that transport cargo or large numbers of troops.
- Similarly, hot temperatures can impose weight limits on NATO’s cargo planes, such as the C-17 Globemaster.
The bottom line: NATO is already engaged in a battle with climate change, from melting permafrost at its northernmost training sites to online disinformation when its members are at their most vulnerable.
