28 November 2024

The security blind spot: Cascading climate impacts and tipping points threaten national security

Report by the IPPR, October 2024

 

Editor’s note: Climate security impacts in the UK have a direct impact on the EU. Not only will many EU countries face similar climate challenges as the UK, but the Union also has very close economic, military and political relations with the UK. According to this IPPR report, crossing climate tipping points is expected to have grave consequences in the UK. Stable food supplies, energy security, infrastructure, and public health will be at stake, impacting the EU as one of the UK’s main trading partners. This serves as a reminder for European stakeholders to take swift action to improve resilience to climate change in the region whilst continuing to work on resilience efforts in other regions.  Additionally, amid imminent US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, international climate cooperation between the EU and the UK will become paramount to mitigate climate change globally and enhance resilience on the European continent.

A new report by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests that the UK has a glaring national security blind spot for climate threats. 

The report, published by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), Chatham House, the University of Exeter and the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative finds that:

  • UK food, energy and economic security are threatened by climate shocks and their chaotic consequences.
  • Security threats are escalating, evidence suggests a 45 per cent chance of a tipping point in the Atlantic being triggered this century, putting the UK at a significant risk.
  • The government’s national risk register does not adequately consider climate threats and is badly unprepared, with worrying similarities to the situation prior to Covid-19.

The report points to the fact that climate change is already playing a significant role in several threats to UK national security, including threats to energy security, threats to public health, and threats to food supplies. These will only get worse as the world is expected to soon breach the international goal of keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

An urgent threat that is rapidly evolving is the risk that climate tipping points are triggered. These are moments when parts of the climate system can no longer cope with the stress being inflicted by human action and abruptly break down. Tipping points in the Atlantic Ocean pose particular threats to the UK. The report finds evidence that suggests up to a 45 per cent chance of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG) collapsing this century and happening as early as 2040, if not before. Such an event could destabilise national and global security. The SPG is a northern component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a large system of rotating ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean that plays a crucial role in regulating regional and global climate.

Consequences of the SPG collapsing – triggered by melting Arctic ice – could include fundamental changes to the UK’s weather; creating more extreme weather patterns with hotter summers and colder winters; impacting the ability to farm and grow crops; and damaging infrastructure and public health. 

The UK would be one of the worst affected countries due to its geographic position in relation to the North Atlantic. The next hardest hit would be the UK’s key trading partners. Yet these threats have not been properly assessed by previous governments, something the report urges the new government under Keir Starmer to address.

Even more concerning than the SPG collapse would be the breakdown of the entire AMOC, which would effectively wipe out crop growing in the UK and severely damage the global food system. The report says this would create unmanageable outcomes for economic stability, geopolitical cohesion, and all other parts of society. The breakdown of the AMOC this century cannot be ruled out without urgent international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

‘We need a policy tipping point to better prepare us for the risks from climate tipping points. For too long we have treated climate change as if it were some slow-burning long-term issue that will only really hurt our children or people living elsewhere. We show that climate tipping points can unfold fast and soon, hit the UK and our allies hard, and that we are woefully underprepared for that. Now is the time to act to get prepared’

says Professor Timothy M. Lenton, Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science, University of Exeter, and co-author of the report.

The authors urge that the UK must learn from the mistakes of the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically its lack of preparedness. They recommend that the government undertakes a rapid national security risk assessment of climate change, to identify the most critical threats and develop better risk-management strategies. The report also suggests that the government:

  • Uses the upcoming review of national resilience and the ongoing Strategic Defence Review to put climate risks at the heart of its national resilience and security plans.
  • Creates an independent Centre for Climate and Nature Security to improve the UK security community's understanding of climate and nature threats and develop better early-warning systems for major threats.
  • Acts on the UK Covid-19 inquiry’s recommendations for rebooting UK preparedness for, and resilience, to emergencies.

 

These are extracts from a report by Laurie LaybournJesse F AbramsDustin BentonKathryn BrownJoseph EvansDidier SwingedouwTimothy M Lenton and James G Dyke, published in October 2024. The full publication can be accessed here.

 

Photo credit: Andrew Stawarz/Flickr