National security impacts of climate change

Climate change has increasingly become an unavoidable issue that countries continue to wrestle with, and along with worries over energy resources, there is no wonder that security has become a concern internationally.

The government released its Strategic Defence and Security Review earlier this week highlighting the matter – the UK "faces a range of risks related to our ability to access secure, diverse and affordable supplies of energy, which are essential to economic stability and growth."

The review points out that energy has to be a top priority in UK foreign policy, and diplomatic relations with key energy-exporting countries need to be seriously looked at. The UK’s fossil fuel supplies are going down and so, our reliance on energy imports can only increase. The government has to “understand and respond to the national security impacts of climate change, which may exacerbate existing security threats".

Central to the governments security plan will be the low carbon and energy-efficiency agenda – quite simply reducing our neediness for energy imports.

The report says we will work “with the EU, the International Energy Agency and other international institutions to take forward UK priorities, such as improving energy infrastructure, promoting effective energy market mechanisms, encouraging energy efficiency and the deployment of low-carbon technologies.”

Previous studies (MOD and US Defence Department) have already warned that the biggest global security threat this century faces will originate from climate change. Nature will take its course – which means the government cannot afford to chill out.