European Union Commissioner for Climate Action Wopke Hoekstra has warned that climate change will quadruple the likelihood of conflicts on Earth due to limited resources. This is reported by UNN with reference to the Financial Times.
Details
Hoekstra said that over the past year he has been contacted by senior military officials who wanted to "check their thoughts" on how rising sea levels, droughts, floods and forest fires are affecting military operations. They also consulted on the potential of migration and resource scarcity to fuel conflict.
Climate change and its consequences have a clear direct and indirect impact on geopolitics, on security. Access to resources has always been part of conflicts and wars. But given the dramatic consequences of climate change, this will quadruple the effect
The warning comes as the Trump administration seeks to reduce NATO's focus on climate change as a critical strategic issue.
Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made climate change a key focus of his tenure. His efforts are now at odds with Trump's view that climate change is neither man-made nor an urgent problem.
Hoekstra is also under pressure to persuade EU member states to support the EU's ambitious climate goals, including becoming the first zero-emission continent by 2050.
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Economic and military priorities have replaced climate at the top of the EU's political agenda amid concerns, particularly on the bloc's eastern flank, about an aggressive Russia.
But Hoekstra argued that the two aspects should go hand in hand, given the risk of climate-related conflict and the impact of global warming on military operations.
New challenges for the armed forces
The effects of higher temperatures are already increasing demands on the military. In several EU member states, the army has been involved in helping to fight forest fires. In the US, the Department of Defense has previously stated that climate change is increasing the demand for operations.
At the same time, military forces face the challenge of ensuring that their equipment and bases can withstand more extreme conditions. US military engineers estimate that more than 60% of Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base in Virginia, could be under water after severe storms by the second half of this century.
Hoekstra said the military needs to become more environmentally friendly, but "this should never come at the expense of their combat capabilities."
Supplement
Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Svitlana Hrynchuk stated that Russia committed more than 8,000 crimes against the environment in Ukraine with its attacks during the war. The amount of damage has already reached 85 billion euros.