Report published by The Center for Climate and Security, 20 January 2026.
As NATO enters a turbulent period characterized by heightened geopolitical tension, a less visible - but no less consequential - challenge is coming into focus: the growing impact of climate change and food insecurity on the resilience of the Alliance.
This report by the Center for Climate and Security examines how climate-driven shocks - from extreme weather to food supply disruptions - are already shaping NATO’s threat environment. Rather than treating climate and food security as peripheral or long-term concerns, the paper argues that they function as stability multipliers: factors that can either reinforce resilience or magnify vulnerability, depending on how they are addressed.
This work shows that climate change is not an isolated risk but a force that compounds hybrid threats. Extreme weather events strain critical infrastructure, disrupt food and energy systems, and create openings for adversaries to exploit societal stress through disinformation, coercive migration, cyber operations and the weaponisation of food. NATO forces are already being deployed at scale to respond to climate-related disasters - a signal that these risks are no longer theoretical.
Crucially, the paper highlights a persistent gap between awareness and integration. While most NATO member states now acknowledge climate change and food security as security risks, these issues remain unevenly embedded in defence planning and resilience strategies. Climate policy, food systems and national security are still too often addressed in silos, limiting NATO’s ability to anticipate and manage compound shocks.
The central argument is clear: resilience investments that fail to account for climate and food system vulnerabilities risk reinforcing outdated assumptions, while leaving the Alliance exposed to future crises. Strengthening food security and climate resilience - at home and abroad - is therefore not a distraction from defence priorities, but an essential component of long-term stability.
"If resilience investments fail to account for climate risks and food system vulnerabilities, NATO countries risk reinforcing yesterday’s threats while remaining exposed to tomorrow’s shocks."
Main takeaways
- Climate change acts as a threat multiplier. Climate-driven disasters expose systemic vulnerabilities that adversaries exploit through hybrid tactics, including disinformation, weaponised migration and attacks on critical infrastructure.
- Food security is a core resilience issue. It is one of NATO’s baseline resilience requirements, yet remains inconsistently linked to climate risk and global instability in national defence planning.
- Recognition outpaces implementation. While most NATO members acknowledge climate and food risks in strategy documents, concrete actions focus narrowly on adaptation and emissions, overlooking indirect security impacts.
- Silos undermine resilience. Climate change, food systems and defence planning are still treated as separate domains, weakening NATO’s ability to manage complex and composite crises.
- Resilience investments are strategic choices. Targeting food, energy and climate resilience strengthens preparedness, reduces crisis-response burdens and limits adversaries’ ability to exploit systemic shocks.
At the same time, the report also offers a set of key focus areas for NATO and its member states:
- Recognize the close links between global and domestic food security.
- Strengthen collaboration among resilience planners, energy and climate security experts, and food security specialists.
- Leverage exemplar member states to help guide other NATO members in addressing food security and climate change.
- Increase awareness among security stakeholders of the security value of diplomatic and development investments in food and climate resilience.
In short, climate change and food insecurity are no longer background conditions for NATO security - they are shaping the operational environment itself. Treating them as strategic stability multipliers ensures that resilience investments reflect the realities of an increasingly chaotic and shocks-prone world order.
This text is based on extracts from a report written by Erin Sikorsky (Director, the Center for Climate and Security, Council on Strategic Risks). To read the complete piece, follow the link here.
Photo credit from Mika Baumeister on Unsplash.