Adaptation

Defense issues
Defense issues

The Strategic Use of Climate Vulnerabilities in Contemporary Conflicts: Modalities and Feedback Effects

This note from the Defence and Climate Observatory proposes to move beyond the dominant debates on the climate-conflict nexus focusing on the role of climate change as a direct or indirect factor in conflicts, by concentrating on the interaction between climate issues and conflict dynamics. It analyses case studies of contemporary conflicts to understand how climate vulnerabilities are used as a strategic lever in conflict contexts, within a continuum of instrumentalisation-arsenalisation (I), the environmental damage caused by conflicts, also instrumentalised by the belligerents, and their security and strategic implications (II). Finally, the note proposes three forward-looking scenarios, accompanied by strategic recommendations for the French Ministry of the Armed Forces (III).  

19 November 2025
Defense issues
Defense issues

Integration of climate-environmental issues by the armed forces

Whether in terms of anticipating risks or threats to national security, vulnerability of military infrastructure, adaptation of equipment and training to the effects of rising average temperatures or extreme conditions (Arctic), it is clear that the impacts of climate change pose many challenges to the maintenance and implementation of the military effect of armed forces.

23 March 2021