UK pledges £331 million to tackle climate-linked security risks
Britain will provide £331 million to the Global Environment Facility to tackle climate- and biodiversity-loss-driven instability, as ministers warn environmental shocks are becoming a national security threat.
Britain will provide £331 million ($438.24 million) to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss-driven instability, it said Wednesday, warning that environmental shocks are becoming a national security threat.
The funding goes to the Global Environment Facility to support food and water security and protect ecosystems, including forests in the Amazon and Congo Basin.
The announcement followed remarks by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband at New York Climate Week, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, where he called on leaders to factor climate change into national security risk assessments. He said climate change and ecological collapse should be integrated into defence strategies, intelligence networks and strategic military planning.
“Countries need to pool information because a shock beginning in one country can rapidly travel through supply chains, financial markets, and migration patterns to other countries,” Miliband said.
The Iran war has caused oil and gas prices to surge, pushing some countries to use more coal power and others to adopt more solar power and electric vehicles, Reuters reported.
Katie White, Britain’s climate transition minister, told Reuters on the sidelines of the General Assembly that the UK was “leading the way” on turning countries’ focus to climate security ahead of COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, which begins on 9 November.
“The military has been at the forefront of a lot of this [climate risk] planning for a long time because they’ve always seen that climate change is a threat multiplier. The politics is a bit behind the security community on this,” White said.
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