Uncontested terrain? Reflections on the perception of the military in climate security

The article authors argue that compared to twenty years ago the military is readily involved in climate security and that “the focus has shifted from a concern with environmental security to an almost exclusive concern with climate security. Environmental security is wider than climate security. It considers the manifold ways in which environmental degradation impinges on security of different referent objects, or vice-versa. Climate security by contrast looks at the security implications of climate change only.”

In the article published in Contemporary Security Policy on 1 September 2025, they write that “In the 1990s when environmental security first gained mainstream prominence, environmentally-minded academics viewed the involvement of the military in this agenda negatively. Nowadays, academics seem more willing to accept a role for the provision of climate security. Drawing on lived experience, observation, and readings of the literature, this article advances a series of propositions that together aim to examine whether there really is a change in perception of the military among environmental security scholars, and, if so, why it occurred. The propositions’ relative explanatory value is established via a literature review and cross-referenced with informal interviews with scholars in the field. The article ends by warning that these developments ought not breed complacency on the role of the military in this space”.

In the article they point out that “many security scholars are now willing to work with the military on these issues, including—in varying capacities—the new NATO Climate Change and Security Centre for Excellence in Montreal, or the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change (GMACCC). This raises the following questions: have perceptions of the military in this context changed, and if so, why has this change occurred?