NATO Summit 2021: a Green Action Plan for security and climate change
One of the most relevant and unprecedented issues addressed at the Brussels summit was undoubtedly climate change, the measures to combat this phenomenon and its implications for the security of the Alliance. In fact, leaders acknowledged that the critical issues arising from climate change represent a real security challenge, capable of disrupting socio-economic contexts and of having critical repercussions on the defensive capabilities of member States. After initial steps taken in recent years, starting with the 2014 Green Defense Framework, NATO has now decided to place climate change at the top of its priorities and challenges for the future of member countries and the world at large.
The new agenda that will guide the Alliance’s efforts will be called the “NATO Climate Change and Security Action Plan” and will aim to lead initiatives related to combating climate change, articulating itself along four key lines: raising allies’ awareness; adapting to climate change; mitigating the impact of its own activities on climate; and disseminating efforts outside the Alliance.
On a practical level, the success of these intentions will be guaranteed by a series of tools to monitor, coordinate and measure progress. The lack of such a system had been the main weakness of NATO’s Green Defense program until now. In fact, the summit established the publication of an annual report on the state of the climate, its effects on the environment and security, and the progress made by member States (both in the NATO and national context) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To ensure the latter, the Alliance will adopt a shared analytical methodology for mapping and measuring efforts, while renewing collaboration with the scientific community and major international organizations for the development of best practices that can be applied outside the Euro-Atlantic context. The plan will go into action immediately: in fact, the first climate report is scheduled for the next summit in Madrid in 2022, together with the launch of the new Strategic Concept that will likely definitively elevate climate change to a priority of strategic interest for the years to come.
Finally, with the aim of understanding the security repercussions of climate change and to develop effective policies and methodologies to combat it, a “NATO Centre of Excellence (COE) on Climate and Security” will be established in Canada. Acknowledging the political, security and technological challenge represented by climate change, the Atlantic Alliance will move, with increasing decision, towards the realization of a green defense, as part of the 2030 Agenda and of the deep process of internal reflection underway within NATO.
