The Defence and Climate Observatory is headed by François Gemenne and Mathilde Jourde, and coordinated by another five researchers. A network of some 20 leading experts can also be called in, depending on the subject areas to be addressed.

Mathilde Jourde is a research fellow at IRIS, where she heads the Climate, Environment, Security Programme. Her research focuses mainly on the interaction between the environment and security, in particular the security risks related to climate change. She is specialized in natural resource-related conflicts, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the geopolitics of the energy transition.

François Gemenne is a researcher in environmental geopolitics at the University of Liège, where he is Director of the Hugo Observatory, a research centre committed to the study of interactions between human migration and the environment. A member of the IPCC and president of Climate Voices, he teaches at Sciences Po (Institut d'études politiques de Paris) and at the Université libre de Bruxelles.

Marine de Guglielmo Weber is a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research at the Military School (IRSEM) and holds a PhD in Information and Communication Sciences. Her dissertation was titled: "Hail Suppression" vs. "Weather Risk Management": Practices, Promises, and Media Coverage of Cloud Seeding. She focuses on the strategic and security challenges linked to climate disruption. Her work specializes in analyzing the technological solutions developed in response, especially weather and climate modification practices.

Julia Tasse is a Senior Research Fellow at IRIS, where she leads the Ocean Program. Her work focuses on maritime affairs and the ocean from a geopolitical perspective. She has developed expertise on these issues through previous work with the World Ocean Council, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the French Development Agency.

Alexandre Taithe is Head of the Environment and Security Department at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique. He works on the governance of renewable natural resources, social and political instabilities resulting from environmental degradation or major infrastructure projects, and the security and operational consequences of climate change.

Éléonore Duffau is a researcher at IRIS in the Climate, Environment, Security program, where she specializes in strategic and security issues related to climate change. Before joining IRIS, Éléonore Duffau completed an internship at the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in the decentralized cooperation sector.

Sofia Kabbej is a PhD student in the School of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Queensland, where she is studying the French approach to climate security, in relation to political modernity, and more specifically to questions of sovereignty. She also works on the security impacts of climate change, and on geo-engineering.