Reports by climate research institutes corroborate analyses by military and security officials of NATO countries: As global warming proceeds, the scale and frequency of climate crisis-induced disasters will mount and, together with a shifting geopolitical situation, demographic trends and energy transition, will lead to a world of scarcity and instability. Extreme heatwaves in South Asia and the Middle East, but also floods in Pakistan, Greece, the Philippines and Libya, offer a foretaste of what is to come. The repercussions of destruction of crops, houses, roads, industrial plants, schools and healthcare facilities can only be quantified to a limited extent. What is clear is that declining agricultural productivity and economic output will not only severely constrain the resources of the countries affected while ratcheting up their dependence on international aid – the potential for conflict between countries is also on the rise. The destruction of social infrastructure hits those who are most dependent on it the hardest. It increases indebtedness and dependency and is a catalyst of inequality and violence.
Against this backdrop, nothing would appear more obvious than questions of the climate crisis being equated with questions of global security: Security along the lines of health and supply of basic needs, protection of the foundations of life and living spaces, as a cushion against the impact of damage and destruction. Although the most serious consequences of the climate crisis are already making themselves felt primarily in the countries of the Global South, however, it is the rich industrialised countries in particular that are investing in "climate security": in the form of intelligence analyses, defence plans and military scenarios. As far back as 2003, the European Union identified climate change as a key issue in its security strategy and began to run through scenarios on how to cope with risks and threats in different possible trajectories of rising temperatures.
Dawn of a new era instead of climate policy
When the new federal government took office at the end of 2021, thereby also including former climate activists in its ranks, there were grounds for hope for the climate movement. In his inaugural speech, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck announced that Germany would be transforming itself into an "ecological-social market economy": Reorganisation of industry and energy production, redistribution of subsidies and investments, linking climate protection and economic growth. The fact that the Federal Intelligence Service and the German Armed Forces were recently commissioned to draw up a "climate security strategy" under this federal government marks a seismic shift in the way emerging global conflicts are addressed. Transformational politics has given way to the logic of all-subsuming security. The turnaround in climate policy has fallen victim to the dawn of a new era.
In view of the energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, Habeck concluded gas supply agreements with the Emirates, while climate-damaging energy production was ramped up at full steam. Under the ideological pressure of the "debt brake", the German government reapportioned the budget: special funds for the German Army instead of climate transformation funds and climate money. Instead of campaigning for a change in climate policy and cushioning its impact in material terms, an already fragile social acceptance for state intervention to address climate change was further eroded. At the same time, campaigns by Last Generation, which merely sought to remind people to stay on track to achieve transformation targets, have been denounced and handed over to the police to deal with.
The period of peace is over
The picture cast across the international stage is similarly frustrating. World climate conferences are not providing any impetus for change. The stubborn refusal to phase out fossil fuels has buried any hopes of meeting the 1.5-degree target, thus tarnishing the prospects of transformational policies as well. Instead, more money is being spent globally on security than on measures that could prevent catastrophic climate change or provide aid for those affected, while sales revenue for the defence industry is soaring and the border protection business is also raking in huge profits.
The return of war has not only put the clamps on budgetary resources available for transformational policies, however. It has also shifted the logic underlying conflict management. The purpose and task of the military and national intelligence services is to ensure the security of their own country and its interests. This includes securing the borders as well as protecting and fostering a competitive economy, ensuring access to strategic resources and safeguarding supply chains. Climate security has thus become tantamount to protecting and upholding the existing, unjust status quo. And climate policy is being reduced to adapting to the social and political devastation wrought by the climate crisis.
Operating within the logic of the military equation, the climate crisis is only seen in a binary form of threat and security – the symptom hence becomes the cause. People who are trying to survive under for the most part wretched circumstances are identified as a security risk at the latest when they make their way from their destroyed habitats to countries in the Global North. At the same time, these countries in the Global North are already "securing" access to coal reserves and the metals needed for industrial conversion to "green" energy, like nickel, lithium or coltan. The fact that indigenous groups from Indonesia to Chile and Rwanda to Colombia are being expropriated and displaced to this end is then viewed as collateral damage in the course of ensuring our "security".
This not only reproduces the causes of climate change, it also disregards the political aspect as a whole: The constraining logic of defence is hence undermining democracy, serving as a justification for rearmament and isolation in equal measure. The vision of a peaceful world, to which the EU devotes ample rhetoric despite all its actions to the contrary, has given way to the rigorous pursuit of national and European interests. Putting an end to war is no longer the objective; instead, its pervasiveness is fatalistically accepted.
In view of this prognosis, far more is needed than a better distribution of budgetary resources. The task at hand, rather, is to rethink security: in terms of global justice, the realisation of human rights and as a precondition for peace. This also requires a shift in the debate in this country. Currently, obliviousness to the state of the world and fear of crises, the reflexive defence and pursuit of our own parochial interests and our way of life are serving to legitimise the state's recourse to the security policy toolbox.
Karin Zennig, who is in charge of climate justice at medico, visited people and communities who lost everything in the 2022 flood disaster in Pakistan at the end of last year.
